The Longest Night
by TRIALHUNTER
Summary: For eight friends on the anniversary of tragedy, they were expecting a good time. To heal, to forget. But if they wish to survive until dawn, they must overcome the nightmare and perhaps in doing so, discover something new about themselves. Story follows Sam/Chris pairing, Beth takes place of Josh and other role changes.
1. The Night Begins

**CHAPTER 1: THE NIGHT BEGINS**

 **Hello everyone. This will be a little different for me, considering I'm more used to creating OCs to toss into the universe and mess around with the rules and storylines that have been created. For Until Dawn however, I've decided to do an alternate telling of the game instead. So, a few notes before we start.**

 **I've seen a lot of Sam/Josh fics and Chris/Josh ones too. Even some with events going past the events of the game… This fic will follow a sort of epilogue near the end, but the main thread will be a more Sam/Chris pairing. Certain story elements will also change from the base game, though the prologue will for the most part remain entirely the same.**

 **If that explanation is a little too much to digest, don't worry. This chapter will cover the initial parts of it. Enough rambling, let us proceed with our tale…**

 **February 2, 2014**

 **Blackwood Mountain**

 **2.25 AM**

 **Beth Washington**

She had been washing up the dishes in the kitchen, late into the night. It tends to be what happens when you invite all your friends up for a weekend getaway. The others had been in here about 45 minutes ago, talking in hushed whispers far away from her. Jessica skipping away, Sam looking a little concerned with what they had been discussing…

Looking back at the table behind her, Chris and Josh were nearly passed out drunk, barely coherent as they continued to chug down a bottle of Jeremiah Cragg, seemingly not worried about being completely inebriated. Walking over to them, the young teenager picked up one of the empty bottles right next to her brother.

"Jeez, Josh. Once again brother, you've outdone us all." Beth laughed, tapping on the sleeping Josh's shoulder, eliciting a groan from Josh, his eyes flickering wide open from the touch.

"Wha… What's going on?" Josh said, his voice slurred and almost incoherent.

"Nothing, Josh. You drunk…" Beth snorted, fingers pressed against her lips to keep from laughing too hard. Josh, despite his drunken state took the comment in offense, though his inebriation left him little muscle control to express even a modicum of offense.

"I'm…not… drunk." Josh answered with a slur, clutching his head as Beth's voice seemingly rang in his ears. Beth had already moved towards the door, thinking that a nice long rest would keep her refreshed for the day ahead. As she walked past, she saw a rather scruffy looking piece of paper, a small ring on the right corner of it. Her curiosity piqued, Beth took the paper and read its contents on the other side, made out in hastily written pencil. The further she read, the further her face shifted into a look of shock, putting two and two together.

 _Hannah,_

 _You look so damn hot in that shirt. But I bet you're even hotter out of it. Come to the guest room at 2.00AM. :)_

 _Mike_

"Oh no… What did our naïve sister get herself into?" Beth said aloud to herself, shaking her head at the sheer audacity her friends were demonstrating. As she set down the paper, she heard the front door and someone run outside into the storm beyond. Stepping back a little, she shifted her head left and right, forced to decide whether to try and wake her brother or just go and see what was going on. By instinct, she moved to wake Josh up from his drunken slumber, shaking him for all she had.

"Josh, Josh!" Beth shook him again and again, speaking at a high-pitched tone.

"Hmmm… What?" Josh stirred awake yet again, eyes blinking as he looked at Beth.

"There's someone outside." Beth said, moving towards the door and swinging it open on the way outside. Josh followed suit behind her, his movement shaky and barely coherent.

"Ugghh…" he groaned as he kept walking. Beth had grabbed her winter clothing from one of the seats, hurriedly pulling it onto her person as she raced outside, hearing Sam call out to Hannah in the woods. The others, save for Chris were gathered outside, also looking at the edge of the woods.

"What's going on? Where's my sister going?" Beth pushed aside Mike and Matt as she moved towards Sam.

"It's fine. She just can't take a joke." Jessica sighed, moving away as she stepped inside the lodge with a shaking head.

"It was just a prank, Han." Emily called out, the tone carrying a half-apologetic nature to it. Matt and Ashley remained silent, not really wanting to call Beth's attention and thus her wrath down upon them.

"What did you do?" Beth responded, voice accusatory, her eyes trained on Mike.

"We're just messing around, Beth. It wasn't serious." Mike tried to explain himself to her, hands slowly raising up in the air in defense. He even backed up a little, so biting was Beth's glare.

"You jerks!" Beth angrily said, about to run after Hannah. That is, until Josh finally caught up with her. Seeing everyone gathered at the front door, he had to wonder what was going on. Beth looked very worried, which immediately set off warning bells to the older Washington sibling.

"What's going on?" Josh asked, eyes still flittering in their sockets amidst a hazy drunken fog.

"Hannah ran out into the woods." Sam explained, still attempting to find her amidst the trees, looking more and more worried with each passing second.

"What?!" Josh screamed in shock, shaking whatever ill effects the alcohol had on him, concentrating solely on going out there to get Hannah back.

"Josh, it was just a joke." Mike said meekly, albeit with a heavy sigh. He was expecting to be yelled at by his friend. Josh, balling his hands into fists concealed his anger. ' _Gotta find Hannah..._ ' Was the only thing running through his mind.

"Stay here. I'm going to go get Hannah." Josh said. Beth, thinking that Hannah would need something to keep her warm in the frigid cold took off her winter coat and handed it over to Josh, who nodded as he yanked it out of her hand and raced off to find his sister.

"Hannah!" Josh called out as he disappeared into the cold abyss, the wind slowly obscuring his form until at last he could no longer be seen. As Beth watched her brother leave, the others, all still feeling a little guilty due to their participation in the prank walked back inside into the safety of the cabin. Beth followed suit after them, silently praying that her brother and sister would get back safe. How could she have known that Josh had spoken his final words to her, that she would never see them again? As the night dragged on, the howling wind continued to storm across the mountain, covering up the screams of the two Washington siblings as they fell over the cliff, never to be seen again.

And the dawn soon rose upon that dark day, a bright light amidst a sea of darkness…

 **February 2, 2015**

 **Blackwood Pines Cable Car Station**

 **9.00PM**

 **SAM**

A year. A whole year to this day...

It was never easy, not for anyone who was there that night when Josh and Hannah Washington vanished into the woods, never to be seen or heard from again. It was this very anniversary that Sam was here, having just been dropped off by a rather empty bus on the path towards the cable car station situated at the base of the mountain. Walking forward along the path beneath a sea of trees all around her, the place brought up painful memories of that day. ' _I should have gotten to her before them. I just hope Beth's doing okay._ ' She mused silently, fingers breezing over her phone, which she had just watched Beth's video on during the trip here.

 _Hey, everyone. Beth Washington here. Darn thing… How do you… Ah, there. That's better._

 _Before anyone asks, I'm doing fine. It's hard, I know. And if I didn't think it'd help, I wouldn't have sent this, or sent like a thousand emails to each and every one of you. Sorry about that._

 _I hope you'll all come to the lodge with me. I just wanted to… you know get together, share some memories with each other, move on at long last. I know that's what Hannah and Josh would have wanted. And I know they would want us all to be happy, wherever they are, move on with our lives. It means a lot, should you decide to come._

 _So, I guess… I'll see you here soon, guys. Can't wait…_

 _Now, how do you turn this thing off…?_

' _Anything for you, Beth_.' Sam sighed, doing her level best to fight the fear running through her veins. Marching over to the station, she came up towards a large wrought iron gate, a single note tapered onto the handles. Rubbing her arms together in a shiver, Sam yanked the note down. On it was a simple note made out by Chris, one of Josh's best friends and usually known as the joker of their little tight knit group of friends.

"Gate's busted… Climb on over. Chris." Sam read out the letter. On the back of it, Sam saw an email that Beth had sent to Chris, in response to his query on how to get to the cable car station. Sam tossed the paper aside, moving over to the wall on the side of the gate and started climbing, putting all those hours of rock-climbing to good use. Soon enough, she was over the railing and on the other side.

Further up the road, she came across a small signage tucked away by the side of the trail, a thin layer of snow covering the top of the plaque. Leaning in to read the print, Sam was intrigued by its contents. On it, an ancient native myth was parroted back, about the belief that butterflies held the key to prophecies and that they could provide brief glimpses of the future to the viewer. Based on the color of the totem, a different form of future would be revealed to them.

"Huh, cool." Sam said, her eyes travelling down the long lines of text, voraciously consuming the knowledge imparted on the plaque. That was when her eyes landed on one such totem, a small little wooden carving with shades of yellow painted all over its design.

"Must be a guidance totem, if this plaque is to be believed… Alright, what do you have for me?" Sam said, slowly picking up the totem before spinning it around, revealing a butterfly shaped hole with a yellow outline around it. Suddenly, she felt her entire body lurch forward as if being sucked into the totem itself. Her vision went dark and her sense of spatial awareness dimmed considerably.

Her eyes suddenly flashed open, revealing the cable car station at the top of the mountain, drenched in a rather chilly filter, a blue tone obscuring the images flashing through her head. She saw a cute, little bird chirping happily amidst the snow, perched on top of a small wooden bench and table laid out amidst the snow. A lone figure wielding what appeared to be a snowball remained crouched behind a nearby tree. The bird then flew away, just as the figure started to move out from the cover. With that, the vision ended and Sam 'awakened' back where she was, still clutching the totem in her hand.

"Weird." Sam shook her head, rubbing at her eyes as if to check to see whether the vision was actually real or not. Thought still on her mind, she continued on towards the cable car station nearby.

"Chris? You here?" Sam yelled out, hands towards her mouth as impromptu microphone. Nothing answered back save for the howling wind billowing from up high. Walking over to the station, she attempted to open the station door, only to find it completely locked.

"Why is it locked?" Sam pondered aloud, stepping away to look for another way in.

"Your bag's here, but where are you?"

"You're not in the bag, are you?" She said aloud, looking around. Just as she was about to move away, she heard the soft rustle of footsteps pressing against snow. Spinning around, she saw her friend march out from behind the station, waving over to him.

"Sam, you made it!" Chris said cheerfully, his goofy smile a welcome sight for Sam, having spent most of the trip here with rather unsavory characters.

"Hey, Chris. Get here okay?" Sam asked, smiling.

"More or less… Though… I really wish I had taken climbing class before trying to scale that wall." Chris grumbled, pressing a hand against his back, wincing with the touch.

"You mean gym, right?" Sam chuckled, deciding to crack a joke. Chris, smiling took it in stride, though Sam didn't see his red cheeks, embarrassment etched on the poor boy face as plain as day.

"Oh, so I found something kinda amazing." Chris recalled, grabbing his bag and swinging it onto his back.

"What?" Sam shrugged her shoulders.

"I'm not going to tell you. You've gotta see it for yourself. It's right around here." He pointed towards the direction he had come from, a small place to the side. Following Chris, Sam came across a torn up paper, a wanted poster detailing a convicted killer that was last seen in the mountains about five years ago. Sam did a double take with the poster, a little unsettled by the idea considering the last year. Continuing to follow Chris, she eventually saw Chris standing in front of a shooting range, complete with rifle and targets.

"Ta-da! Pretty rad, right?" Chris held out his hands away from his body, doing jazz hands like he was showing off new cars to potential customers. Sam merely looked a little concerned, her expression of a similar state.

"Oh, come on. Look at these beauties." Chris picked up the rifle, looking it over through his glasses. For a weapon that was more or less untouched since last year, it looked to be in perfect condition.

"Not the word that comes to mind when you're describing a shooting range." Sam moved forward and closer towards the range. Chris, finished with his checks saw Sam approaching and being the gentleman he wanted to be, offered the rifle to Sam.

"Nah, you go ahead." Sam waved him off, Chris nodding and taking aim with the rifle. The first few shots were relatively simple, a bag here, and a can there and perhaps even an empty whiskey bottle just to spice things up. Chris took some time to adjust at the beginning, often accidentally hitting his glasses against the iron-sights of the rifle. Eventually however, each shot rang out with success, targets falling left and right.

"Boom! Expert marksman right here!" Chris celebrated, perhaps a little too soon. Sam shook her head, secretly smirking underneath.

"I'm gonna guess that was a lucky shot right there." Sam teased him.

"I don't think so, girl." Chris went back to focus, noticing a small squirrel had scurried up onto a small barrel, nibbling away at some nuts left behind. ' _Probably shouldn't shoot it. Especially with Sam here…_ ' Chris thought quietly, glancing briefly at Sam quietly watching him from behind. All this time, Chris was often chided for not acting on his apparent crush on Ashley, a girl he usually spent a lot of time with. Only Ashley knew where his heart laid and him being himself, he hasn't had the courage to even try. After all, Sam wasn't like the others in the group. She was usually the voice of reason and action, just like last year. Resolving to try a little harder, Chris took a shot at a nearby bag instead, the bullet zinging against the sand as a small stream of it trickled out onto the snowy ground.

"Nice shot." Sam complimented him.

"Your ass just got saaacked!" Chris whooped at his own pun, Sam visibly groaning in the background. Looking up, Sam saw the gears of the cable start to spin and a single box-like shadow start to loom closer and closer towards them.

"Hey, look. Cable car's on its way. Time to go..." Sam nudged Chris in the ribs, breaking Chris' concentration. Nodding reluctantly, Chris set down the gun, hand sliding down the length of it with a sense of pride.

"And I was just getting the hang of this." He glumly stated as they made their way back to the station. Once again, Sam tried the door and once again, it refused to budge.

"Let me get that. Beth wanted to make sure no squatters make home in the station." Chris replied, pulling out a key to the station Beth had sent him earlier. He moved to unlock the door, the lock clicking open with a resultant 'tick'.

"You keep in contact with her?" Sam asked as they walked inside to wait for the cable car.

"Yeah, well. She wanted to see if I had any of Josh's old stuff. For some memorial she's planning to give. I brought some of them in here with me." Chris pointed at the backpack behind him, the clunk of certain items swishing around unmistakable to her ears.

"She sound like she's doing alright?" Sam pried, having lost contact with Beth about six months ago due to her new college. The schedule kept taking up all her spare time, Sam cursing silently at the thought of Beth having to deal with the tragedy all by her lonesome. It was good to hear that Chris had picked up the slack, if unintentionally.

"She has her days." Chris rubbed his blonde hair, uncomfortable in his words. It was tough, watching the once cheerful Beth descend at first into grief, then into vain defiance at the facts. The last few times he had visited the Washingtons before tonight, Beth had regained some of her composure and color to her demeanor, though she still had moments of anger and guilt from time to time.

"I hope this was the right thing to do, coming back for the anniversary and all." Sam's eyes nested upon her fingers, as if to admire her own painted nails.

"I'm sure it's fine. She seemed quite excited for this when I talked to her." Chris did his best to reassure her.

"Good, good." Sam nodded reluctantly, just as the cable car arrived at the station, its doors creaking open. Her reluctance came from the thought of seeing Beth again after a half-year apart. ' _Hope she doesn't hate me…_ ' she silently muttered to herself.

"After you…" Chris said to Sam, both of them ready to begin their next great adventure as they stepped inside the cable car, their destination set…

 **Blackwood Mountain Cable Car Station**

 **9.32PM**

 **JESSICA**

Jess was bored. Again…

If she knew that waiting for new arrivals to turn up would be this boring, she would have asked Mike to handle this instead. As she sat down, reading her book to pass the time, she heard the cable car rumble to life as it returned on a path back to them. Matt and Emily had passed by a few minutes earlier, Emily having given her a scathing look. ' _Damn bitch doesn't know when to quit._ ' She snorted as she rose from her seat to greet the others.

"Boy, oh boy… New people. Time to meet and greet!" Jessica chirped to herself, walking towards the station door with a skip in her step.

"Jess!" Chris called out, banging against the station door, nearly startling Jessica half to death. She leaped back in shock, only for her face to immediately brighten upon seeing familiar faces.

"Jessica, over here!" Sam called out as well, tapping against the glass pane to get Jessica's attention.

"What's the matter?" Jessica crossed her arms, looking slightly bemused at their predicament.

"We're stuck in this stupid thing." Chris bemoaned, still with a witty grin on his face.

"Can you please let us out? Pretty please?" Sam asked sweetly, a hint of pleading entering her voice. Jessica, sighing depressed on the button, deactivating the electronic lock and allowing Chris and Sam to push out into the bitter cold of the high mountains.

"Oh my god… Another ten minutes and I would have started chewing off my own leg." Chris dramatically enthused, clearly reveling in the act.

"Eww, Chris." Sam gave a look of disgust.

"What? I have a lot of meat on my bones. This is all muscle." Chris said flippantly, pointing down at his average-looking legs. Sam again groaned, more visibly this time. Chris took it as a positive sign. ' _Good start to the weekend._ ' He thought to himself.

"Glad to see you haven't changed." Jessica smirked, unable to stay mad at the joker for too long. After all, it's one of the reasons why he's gelled so well with their merry band of misfits, or as Jessica calls it the peanut gallery.

"Who, me? Anyway, where's Mike? Aren't you joined at the hip these days?"

"Who told you that? Was it Beth? I told her to keep that quiet!" Jessica's jaw dropped, figuratively speaking, blurting out her retort with flushed cheeks of embarrassment.

"Me and my big mouth…" Chris winced, not wanting to think about how Beth would react when she finds out about this.

"Em must not be too pleased." Sam chimed in, hoping to direct Jessica's anger elsewhere.

"You're lucky. The snarling bitch came up a few minutes before you guys." Jessica scoffed, looking towards the path to the lodge. Chris glanced in the same direction, seeing only a way to somewhere nice and warm, not freezing cold weather at every turn.

"Alright, let's just get up to the lodge. It's freezing out here." Chris shrugged, moving towards the path leading up to the lodge.

"Agreed." Sam nodded, following behind Chris but not before waving farewell to Jessica, who had opted to remain behind and wait for Mike to come and get her. They had been dating for about half a year now and seeing as there was no parental supervision up on the mountain, plus a location as remote as they come, it was the perfect spot to unleash those teenage hormones, preferably on one another.

Jessica, so preoccupied as she was with Chris and Sam that she did not notice that the cable car had left for the station at the base of the mountain, a strange figure draped in thick winter overalls and tanks of flammable gas strapped to their back. Grumbling, the figure idly waited for the cable car, tapping impatiently on their flamethrower to pass the time. ' _Those kids have no idea what's up there…_ ' the stranger thought to themselves. They weren't wrong.

For if they were not careful, this night could very well be their last…

 **Alright, so that was the first chapter. Hopefully, this gets enough traction to warrant more chapters. Until then, have fun and have a very good day!**


	2. Calm Before The Storm

**CHAPTER 2: CALM BEFORE THE STORM**

 **Alright, time for chapter 2. So, an update on how the story is going to progress… I just came up with a plot twist very different from how the game goes about, not just in switching up character fates and the like. As to when that comes about, well… Just wait and see. Anyway, this chapter should cover the remainder of 9:00PM and start moving into 10:00PM. And now on with the show…**

 **Blackwood Mountain Cable Car Station**

 **9:45 PM**

 **JESSICA**

Crossing her legs seemed like a grand way to pass the time. After all, it wasn't like there was much else to do up here. Thanks to the crappy reception, both on her phone and from the raging bitch that just left a few minutes again, she had little else to do. Her phone blaring her favorite tune, she went for her Fifty Shades rip-off book, flipping the page open to an especially salacious chapter. As she settled in to read, she heard the rustle of wind as a snowball whizz past her head and whack against the station wall right behind her. It made Jessica jump in fright, looking over to see Mike standing nearby, another snowball readied in his hand. He had a very stupid looking grin on his face, one Jessica recognized for what it was, playful behavior.

"Oh, you did not just do that!" Jessica grinned wickedly, looking at Mike with a look of both playfulness and vengeance.

"Put your hands where I can see them. We've got you surrounded!" Mike said, patting his snowball with relish, his accent drawling into Southern territory.

"But who am I to retaliate? What choice do I, a supple young rebel girl have but to surrender to the strapping military guard come to take me into custody?" Jessica mockingly raised her hands in surrender, stepping forward a little. Seeing a ready-made snowball sitting on the railing, Jessica opted to instead dash for cover behind the wooden bench, thinking that grabbing the snowball would make her a far easier target for Mike to hit.

"Eh, sneaky, sneaky!" Mike said incredulously, launching his snowball right at her. Jessica dodged the projectile, shifting her head just a little to the left and seeing the snowball land with a thud on the soft snow from when it once came. Jessica started rolling up another snowball, keeping her body low to the ground to avoid incoming projectiles. Rising up, she quickly launched her round as soon as Mike attempted to make a run for the tree.

The snowball landed against it jaw, Mike falling back a little from the impact. Laughing rather weakly, he tossed again in an attempt to reclaim his glory. And yet again, the more agile Jessica dived for a nearby rock, placing herself in cover and hearing the snowball splat on her impromptu cover spot. Hurriedly, she quickly set up another snowball ready to go. As she rose, a small blue and yellow bird nestled on top of the bench, sitting there and pecking at its own feet.

' _That's not Michael. Where is he?_ ' Jessica barely gave it a glance, not even noticing that the bird soon took off, flapping its wings as it continued to chirp happily. From behind a tree came Mike, now locked and loaded himself. It wasn't even a question for the blonde girl, who sent it flying in his direction. Mike dived, barely missing the shot. With a playful grunt, he ran off into the nearby trees, Jessica starting to look for him in the midst of all the white snow.

"Boom, gotcha!" Mike tackled Jessica while she was unaware, her body crumpling down to the ground, pinned under his weight. Jessica chuckled as she fell, landing against soft snow that tainted her winter clothes.

"Haha… So did I go down?" Jessica smiled, hands resting helplessly in the snow.

"I don't think so." Mike said,

"I'm sure I did." Jessica teased him, still smiling.

"You're a worthy opponent, Ms. Jessica the Snowball Queen." Mike proclaimed, seeing as how Jessica got in the most hits during their little snowball showdown.

"Okay, that sounds vaguely dirty." Jessica teasingly replied, their faces almost in complete contact with one another. She didn't know what possessed her or him of romantic intent, but one way or another, Jessica felt Mike's lips press on her, taking her breath away before pulling back.

"Woah, save some for later." Jessica said, panting slightly.

"Endless reserves…" Mike boasted, eyes blinking once.

"We should head back to the lodge." He said, starting to rise up and relinquish his grip on her hands.

"Yeah, but it's so nice out here…" Jessica frowned a little, eyebrow winding down.

"Well, a warm fire would better set the mood, milady." Mike said, wiping off excess patches of snow stuck to his winter clothing.

"Now that sounds like a plan." Jessica purred delightfully, skipping happily on the path to the lodge, Mike smirking to himself as he trailed behind her. As the two left the station, they failed to notice that the stranger had let themselves out of the building, watching the young couple from a distance, their grip on the flame-thrower in their hands tightening around the trigger, only to relax a moment later as a screech was heard in the opposite direction. They took off, duty calling them away from their watch on the eight teenagers.

Jessica and Mike would soon make their way into the lodge, hand in hand as the newest power couple to ever hit the mountain range. And walking inside, their greeting was a merry one, full of raucous energy and cheer… Until of course…

 **Path to Lodge**

 **9:36 PM**

 **MATT**

"And where's a bellboy when you need one?" Emily started grumbling barely ten minutes upon getting up onto the mountain. Matt sighed as he was once again forced to carry the bags for the both of them, Em's bag weighing much, much more than his, par for the course for the fashion designer in training.

"Agghh…" Matt grunted as he walked up the path, seeing Emily enjoy her leisurely stroll in relative happiness. Emily on the other hand still could not pull that damnable bitch from her mind. ' _What the hell does she have that I don't?!_ ' she balled her fists in anger. She was the smartest girl on campus. Guys should be fawning over her, ready to do anything for even a small amount of her love. And yet Mike hooked up with that fool…

To be fair to Matt, he wasn't the worst rebound she had seen thus far. There was one ridiculously dumb jock who thought they stood a chance, that is until he tried to go straight to second base in as many seconds. One bitch slap later and the cur was screaming bloody murder as Emily walked away, her mood taking a downhill turn that day. Matt simply hoped that this trip would be a good time for her, a place to calm her nerves, so long as she doesn't try to start any business with Jess.

As they neared the lodge, passing under a small bridge, a soft rustle could be heard from above. Matt looked up, back still groaning under the weight of the bags in his hands. Huffing, he tried to catch up with Emily, only to watch a shadowy figure jump down and toss its hands out.

"Ahhhh!" Mike yelled aloud, causing both Emily and Matt to jump back in terror, Matt dropping both the bags onto the wooden bridge and raising his fists in defense.

"Jesus!" Emily bellowed, clutching her chest.

"Dude!" Matt echoed her feelings. Mike continued to laugh, clapping his hands together in a rather congratulatory fashion.

"Michael, you're a jerk!" Emily said aloud in defiance of Mike's laughter.

"I almost clocked you just now." Matt said.

"Come on, guys. We're all friends here. We're up in the woods, all spooky and shit. Get into the spirit of things!" Mike balked, trying to lighten the mood and get them into the atmosphere of things.

"Seriously?!" Emily placed both hands on her hips, looking at Mike with a level of annoyance only she could muster.

"What, Em? Don't be like that."

"Like what?" Emily countered.

"The way you're being. You always get like this."

"Michael, you know that sounds awkward." Matt pointedly mentioned. Mike, seemingly getting the point leaned straight up before addressing Matt.

"Yeah, you're right. Sorry, man. We cool?" Mike scratched his head, still giving off that shit-eating smirk.

"I can do cool." Matt said.

"So I'm just gonna head down the trail to the cable car, leave you two to your fun." Mike did finger-guns to both Emily and Matt, strolling past them as he went back down the trail.

"See ya, man." Matt waved back to Mike.

"See ya!" he in turn threw his hands up in the air, an aura of confidence blossoming from the class president. As Mike slowly disappeared down the trail, Matt went to pick up the bags. Emily watched Mike leave, taking a rather long look at his back before spinning to Matt.

"Hey, Matt…"

"Yeah?" Matt's tone started to show a hint of weariness.

"Could you just take the bags up the rest of the way? I think I left something at the cable car."

"Okay…" Matt raised a quizzical eyebrow at Emily, suspicious. He didn't want to consider it, that he might have been a rebound for Emily and yet her actions have proven otherwise. Still he held out a little bit of hope and if not, he had the weekend to convince her otherwise. ' _Still, at least try and have some discretion, Em…'_ he grumbled angrily under his breath.

"Sorry. I'll be back soon. Thanks, sweetie…" Emily said sweetly, blowing a kiss in Matt's direction. Shaking his head, Matt didn't question it any further, content to play the part of the understanding and caring boyfriend for now. ' _Man… Hope the rest of the weekend doesn't suck major ass…_ ' he thought hopefully, keeping him in relatively high spirits all the way to the lodge.

 **Washington Lodge**

 **10:02 PM**

 **CHRIS**

"Hey, Beth…" Chris said as they came into view of the Washington Lodge. Beth, clad now as she was in a fur heavy coat and jeans waved over to them, a smile etched upon her youthful face.

"Hey, Chris, Sam. I'm so glad you came." Beth walked right up to them, hugging her sister's best friend with a vice-like grip. Behind her, Sam winced at the strength on display. ' _Owww…_ ' Sam felt the air leave her, turning her cheeks a shade of blue. Thankfully, Beth soon released her grip on Sam, her eyes flickering between the two new arrivals.

"It's nice to see you, Beth." Sam felt her breath start to return back.

"Man… this mountain feels bigger each time I climb it." Chris joked.

"It's not that big." Beth shrugged, starting to lead them up the path to the lodge.

"For you maybe." "Damn, no reception. You really need to put a cell tower up here."

"I'll get right on that, right after I kick the bucket."

"Har har…" Chris sarcastically intoned, Sam chuckling away in the background. When they arrived at the staircase to the main door, they could see both Matt and Ashley waiting at the bottom-most stair. Matt stood stiffly behind Emily's bags, arms crossed. Ashley meanwhile had her arms crossed around her sides, shaking and shivering from the cold and trying to gain some form of heat through forced friction. The lodge loomed large over them, a massive structure built using wood gathered from the mountain itself, a monument to the territory the Washingtons owned.

"Hey, guys. Get here okay?" Beth waved her hand to Matt and Ashley.

"More or less… It's so nice to see you again." Ashley responded happily. Matt, now a sulking mess did not answer, only looking down at the white ground with a grumpy demeanor. ' _I leave her for five minutes…_ ' he cursed in his head. Earlier, Ashley had given him a chance to take a look through the telescope, with him gladly accepting the opportunity to see the sights or even Mother Nature in action. Instead, he saw Mike and Emily hugging out, as if nothing had ever happened between them. Heart aching with betrayal, Ashley could only stammer logical reasons for their meeting to Matt and receiving no reply in response.

Beth moved right past them, accompanied by Chris, taking the stairs one step at a time. She tried to open the door, but felt something push back against her. Trying again with a little more force, the wooden door refused to budge and give way. Bending down to peek at the lock, she groaned as soon as she saw pockets of ice frosted in the gaps of the door.

"Darn…. Lock." Beth cursed.

"It's iced?" Chris leaned in, his height allowing him to tower over the lithe Washington sister with relative ease.

"Yeah…" Beth looked left and right, trying to find some way of getting in. "Let me think…" she said to herself, lost in deep thought.

"Must be another way in somewhere." Chris too followed this routine, scanning for any other access point

"Quite a few but they're all locked. And I don't have the keys for them." Beth said, shrugging her shoulders.

"Should be a way to break in somewhere…" Chris searched around, hands curling in front of his glasses like makeshift binoculars.

"I'll take anything at this point. Anything to get out of this cold…" her voice had a quiver to it, the cold biting against her uncovered skin. Back down the stairs they went, with Chris pausing at the bottom step to speak with Ashley for a little bit.

"Hey, Ash."

"Hi, Chris." Ashley smiled, waving to the bespectacled man.

"So, how're you doing?"

"Good. A little cold… Could use some time curled up by the fire."

"Yeah, that sounds pretty rad." Chris said, chuckling a little. The idea brought to mind of Sam and when Chris dared to take a peek behind his shoulder to check up on her, Ashley had to fight the urge to laugh out loud.

"Chris, when are you going to tell her? She's not going to be single much longer." Ashley prodded him, knowing where his attention was.

"I don't know Ash. Maybe I'm reaching for high fruit. I mean… " Chris looked over his shoulder, seeing Sam look down the trail they had come from, hands pressed on the wooden fence. Ashley had to lean to the right to get the point, though that came with its own facepalm on her own forehead, Ashley shaking her head with a sigh.

"Chris, sooner or later you need to take the leap. I can't cover up for you all the time." Ashley said plainly, drawing back Chris' attention.

"Yeah, maybe you're right." Chris rubbed his shoulder, seeing the wisdom of her words. Before he could continue their conversation, they heard Beth whistle from the right, as if calling to Chris to follow her. Begrudgingly, he left the others to wait as he joined Beth on their journey for a way in.

"So, you and Ash…" Beth used her shoulder to rib Chris.

"Don't start, Beth." Chris snapped back, albeit in a playful manner.

"Okay…Okay… I was just curious." Beth chuckled, hands raised in mock surrender. Chris, chuckling was about to walk onwards when he stumbled on a foreign item. Looking down, he saw a single totem, adorned with carvings and yellow outlines.

"Hmmmm… What's this?" Chris said aloud, his curiosity piqued. Picking up the yellowish totem off the ground, he felt his eyes shift perspective. As soon as he regained his sight from the lurching sensation, he saw through a blurry filter a vision of something that wasn't yet completely clear.

Moments later, Chris felt his entire body lurch forward into the future. He saw a shadowy figure, gender completely undetermined running down a snowy path, a voice calling out for help in the distance. In the running person's right hand was a bolt-action hunting rifle, the other carrying an electric lantern. As the person reached a fork in the road, one between safety and potential risk, the person chose to follow the shorter path, the vision cutting out moments after the choice was made.

"What the…?" Chris instantly dropped the totem onto the ground, backing away from it with a look of fright on it. ' _What was that? What did I just see?_ ' he thought frantically, Beth looking more than a little worried for the state of her friend.

"Chris, you okay?" Beth asked him, a hint of worry in her tone.

"Did you see that?" Chris said, pointing at the fallen totem. Beth, her curiosity piqued went to pick up the totem. From behind her, Chris could only watch as she picked it up, turned it around and allow her body posture to fall into a state of confusion.

"See what?" Beth asked again, having seen nothing of interest, dropping the totem back onto the snowy floor.

"Nothing… Nothing…" Chris shook his head, feeling a small headache start to rear its ugly head. Continuing to walk forward, Chris stopped short of a nearby open window as he noticed a nearby axe handle case, the glass casing completely shattered and in pieces on the snowy floor. Where the axe was supposed to be, only a single outline of the weapon remained, beyond which was a thin layer of dust and fresh snow. ' _Huh, wonder where it is?_ ' Chris pondered, moving to help Beth when she started trying to shift a box underneath the window to get a better look. Chris took the lead, leaping onto the box and peeking inside the window, seeing a large storage room open out before him. His weight tipping, he felt his body lurch forward and tumble into the room, a dull thud echoing in the room as he landed back first on the floor.

"Oh, shit! You okay?" Beth leaned in, looking extremely worried, hands grasped on the frame of the window.

"Yeah… I'm okay!" Chris called, grunting and using his hand to clutch at his bruised back. Just as he was standing up, the bulb that was lighting up the room cracked with a loud 'tink' sound, glass shards scattering all over the floor beneath and tossing Chris into pitch black darkness.

"Whoa, did I do that?" he said.

"Probably just a fuse… Here, use this." Beth tossed a lighter into Chris' hands. Accepting it, Chris flicked the lighter, a thin wisp of fire erupting with the spark, ball of light circling his immediate vicinity. Plus, it also illuminated the engraving on the lighter, one that read ' _Josh W_.'. ' _This is his lighter…_ ' he said to himself.

"Beth, this is…" Chris dropped mid-sentence, shutting his gums up as quickly as possible. Just not fast enough for Beth to catch onto the statement. Instantly, her face drooped, awash with a tone of sadness and guilt that tainted her cheery image.

"Yeah… Just… You go on ahead. I need to… get some air…" Beth's face drooped uncomfortably, her eyes watering at the memory. Before Chris could even speak, let alone apologize, Beth had stepped back from the window, disappearing to who knows where. ' _Sometimes I need to know when to shut my mouth…_ ' Chris shook his own head, cursing at his uncanny wit for the first time in a long time. Clicking on the lighter, the dim light sphered out and cast its shadow on the long abandoned storage room. Mountains upon mountains of the Washingtons' old junk remained scattered, including a high-powered skier draped in a dirty white blanket. As Chris made to the door leading into the house proper, his eye caught the attention of yet another totem, one with diamond patterning and brown outlines along its designs.

"Another one?" Chris said, feeling unsure of his decision. As he turned the totem on its back and stared right into the butterfly shaped hole once more, the next vision shooting straight into his head.

This time, the vision depicted a scene in the lodge. As Chris dropped into the scene, the entire area was engulfed in a massive firestorm, coating the entire view with a wall of fire engulfing all in its path. The vision continued, slowly showing a body tossed aside, completely charred almost to the point of being unrecognizable. Yet as the vision started to blur and fade away, Chris could make out a black jacket with fur trimmings on top and black-raven hair burning up on top of the corpse's skull. As recognition set it, his eyes grew wide with abject horror as the vision finally faded away.

"What the fuck?! What the hell are these things showing me?!" Chris shot back, collapsing on the floor with a heave as soon as the vision died down. He scurried back to the wall opposite the totem, back against it as one hand strained to keep the lighter up high while the other clutched his beating heart. ' _That was Emily. In the lodge. On FIRE!_ ' he screamed inside his head, unable to comprehend what he had just seen. Grasping his skull with his head, the vision swirled in his mind as he continued to traverse the house, not at all helped with clues that pointed in the direction of a possible arsonist that had serious beef with Beth's father over some movie rights.

And as he made to swing the door open with a little help from a deodorant can he found in one of the bathrooms, Chris could help but feel a looming sense of dread creep into his heart. Was this trip really the right choice to make? In the distance watching over the house, the stranger's actions all but suggested otherwise. The stranger knew that they could not keep vigil over them. If their actions last year proved anything, they were more than likely to split up. And that would make them prime targets for the danger that lurked beyond.

The night had only just begun…


	3. Everyone Has Their Limits

**CHAPTER 3: EVERYONE HAS THEIR LIMITS**

 **Alright, time to get on a faster roll. This chapter will cover the remaining events of 10-11PM. Hmmm, almost seems like 24 style when I think more about it. As mentioned before, there will be plot points that diverge from the main story and those will come into play a little more either in the next or the one after that. Until then, please sit back, relax and enjoy the show…**

 **Washington Lodge**

 **10:20 PM**

 **BETH**

'This sure brings back memories…' Beth pondered as she stepped back into the lodge for the first time in a year, painfully trying not to think too hard about the events of the past. Ashley, Sam, Chris and Matt sauntered past her as she stared bleakly at the door, taking a large deep breath before stepping over the imaginary boundary she had made for herself.

"Home sweet home…" she said, a quiver of tension cracking her otherwise happy tone. The others did not seem to notice.

"Sweet is not the word I'd use." Matt remarked, setting down his and Emily's bags down to the side of the door. Sam, Chris and Ashley made their way inside, Chris having his hand held onto his backpack. The visions from the last two totems were still reeling in his head and he was very much of the mind to speak and tell all to his fellow companions, before concluding that such crazy talk (He didn't believe it himself) would do nothing but ruin what Beth had invited them down here for.

"This place doesn't look much in use." Sam piped up, looking around the familiar abode.

"Even with all the police coming in and out?" Ashley queried, the investigation having never been closed since that fateful day. According to the recent news report, while the investigation was still underway, it had become so low-key that the police didn't even bother barring access to the lodge, hence the get-together on this very day.

"Not a whole lot of action up here." Chris remarked.

"Brr…. It's still freezing in here." Sam shivered, rubbing her arms together, feeling her teeth start to chatter.

"I'll set up a fire." Beth offered, moving towards the fireplace situated right below the television set hanging in the main room.

"What's up, party people?" Mike exclaimed, hands raised in the air like any average party arrival.

"Hey!" Jessica kept in line with Mike's jovial tone, stepping in and waving to the rest of the group.

"Make yourself at home, Mike." Beth remained bent down, chucking in pre-cut logs into the fireplace.

"Will do…" he said, making a finger gun gesture at the Washington girl. Matt, still bitter about what he had seen earlier, strode up towards Mike, fingers curling into the palm of his hands with seething anger.

"Yeah, take a load off. Have whatever you want. You just take what you want anyway, don't you?"

"Woah, easy there man. I thought we were cool." Mike balked, backing up a little from Matt. Despite being well-built and not too shabby in the physical department, Matt had more than enough muscle on him and that intimidated Mike just a little.

"What were you doing with Em out on the trail?" Matt asked him, barely holding back his anger.

"Were you…Were you following us?" he said, with a look of incredulity.

"I saw you. Through the telescope." Matt explained.

"A guy can't say hello anymore? She was going down to get her stuff. We said hello. That's it." Mike said without pause. Matt considered it for a few seconds, that precious time giving a little more clarity and a lot more patience than he usually did.

"Right. Right. Stupid… Sorry, I overreacted." Matt face palmed, boiling anger subsiding almost as fast as it had arrived. He stepped away, patting his thighs with each deep breath he made to calm his angry demeanor.

"Nah, that's cool, man. Don't worry about it." Mike waved it off, sighing with relief internally. ' _Was not looking forward to taking that meat-brain on…_ ' he said to himself. With the conflict seemingly defused, Mike went back and sat down right next to Jessica on a tarp-covered couch, leaning back into the comfy seat. Ashley, Chris and Sam had by this point gathered off into another corner of the lodge, idly discussing and gossiping among one another. ' _Glad those three can at least be counted on to not stir up trouble._ ' Beth remarked internally as she looked around the room trying to find a matchbox to light the fire. She eventually found one stashed away in a drawer, her attention however commanded by a single picture that was on the table.

It was an old picture, of Hannah, Josh and herself at the beach, of happier times when their family was one single united unit. Hannah had her arm around Josh, as did Beth, all three of them smiling into the camera. A tear streaked down Beth's left cheek, a lump in her throat as she stared longingly at the picture, hoping that time could be reversed. That she could go back and make different choices… Yet the words of the therapist rang in her mind… ' _The past is beyond our control._ '

And then the moment was ruined when Emily decided to walk in and pick a fight with Jessica the minute she saw her all over her ex-boyfriend.

"Oh, my god. That is so gross." Her sarcastic wit shined through, arms folded over one another as she pouted.

"No-one wants in on your territory, honey." Jessica started to rise from her seat, slowly advancing on Emily.

"Excuse me, did you say something?"

"Did you not hear me over your sluttiness?" Emily bit back again.

"Looks like someone's bitter she didn't make the cut." Jessica taunted her.

"Yeah, it's all a big cattle call with that dreamboat. Congrats, you're top cow." Emily's wit shot back.

"Cuts real deep calling Miss Homecoming a cow." Jessica continued to fight back. At this point, Matt, with good intentions moved to break up the fight. Beth, however beat him to the punch.

"Guys, can you please not fight?" Beth said from behind Mike, moving from behind him towards the two. Neither one of them heard her or at least chose to ignore her, for Jessica merely continued to launch into yet another volley of insults.

"Whatever, I don't give a crap what you think." Jessica turned her back to Emily, thinking that it was done and dusted.

"At least I can think. 4.0, bitch. Honor roll. Suck on that when you're trying to sleep your way into a job." Emily boasted, hand gestures signifying her supposed superiority to her in most other regards.

"Who needs grades when you have all the natural advantages you can handle?" Jessica too boasted, hands pointing down towards the rest of her body as an example to prove her point.

"Please just stop fighting…" Beth pleadingly asked yet again, hands clapped in prayer. Again, none of her words got through to them. Matt looked a little tense, still a little hesitant to get truly involved.

"Get real, honey…" Emily blew a raspberry, blowing off Jessica's insult as a terrible joke.

"You couldn't buy a moldy loaf of bread with your skanky ass." Jessica retorted, looking at her with thinly veiled disgust.

"That's a poor insult, bitch." Emily placed emphasis on the word bitch, her tongue wagging as the word left her mouth.

"Oh, are we about to get real? Cause I'm down to get…" Jessica started to bite back, her hand jabbing away right in front of Emily, almost daring the brunette to try something stupid. Before she could even finish her sentence, Beth had erupted into an ear-deafening scream, all eyes slowly spinning towards her.

"ENOUGH!" her posture looked shaky, almost fighting back tears and the desire to punch the both of them in the face. Jessica and Emily both backed up a little, their faces wearing masks of horror as they watched their friend look brazenly angry at the both of them.

"Oh, boy…" Chris said, out of earshot to all but Sam and Ashley, the three watching the emotional scene play out.

"I did not invite you up here so you can have a cat-fight! We're supposed to be here to have a good time, to honor their memory! But nooooo! All you two want to do is act all pissy to each other, something you can easily do in your own spare goddamn time!" She ranted, her finger waggling at Jessica and then Emily in turn. Matt wisely continued to back the hell away from Beth, Emily shooting him a withering look when she saw this. Jessica balked, her expression transforming immediately to guilt at the mere mention, memories already digging up the prank. Emily on the other hand, looked far more frightened, hands nearly rising into an obvious defense posture.

"Beth, I'm so…" Jessica opened her gum, but Beth beat her to the punch.

"You know what? Here, Mike!" Beth angrily thrusted a small metal key into Mike's hands, Mike taking it without a word for fear of bringing Beth's wrath on him otherwise. "Take Jessica to the cabin. Better yet, take Matt and Emily with you too! Then you can all tussle with one another all you want! You fucking jerks!" As the last word escaped her mouth, the floodgates opened and an avalanche of tears ran down her face. Inconsolable, Beth dashed away and pushed past the trio at the stairs, running all the way back to the bedroom she once shared with Hannah, the door slammed behind her as its sound could be heard even from the downstairs floor.

"Beth! Beth!" Jessica cried out, making a mad dash after her, taking the steps two at a time. With her gone, all eyes nominally fell upon Emily.

"Don't look at me. Jessica had it coming." Emily said stubbornly, arms still crossed, daring anyone to counter her point.

"Not the time, Em." Matt shook his head, his hand hiding part of his drooped head. ' _You're supposed to have my back, dick…_ ' Emily selfishly thought to herself, shooting a withering look at Matt.

"Tell Jess I'll be waiting outside." Mike gripped the key inside his fist, awkwardly looking at the rest of them as he marched out towards the side entrance, stage right.

"Em, maybe you should…" Sam said, trailing off as her eyes fell upon the upstairs room.

"Yeah…" Emily sighed, moving past the trio and taking the stairs just as Jessica did earlier. At the same time, Jessica was knocking gently on the wooden door leading into Beth's bedroom, the sound of sobbing echoing in Jessica's ears as she tried to gain access into the room.

"Beth? Can I come in?" she said aloud, rapping on the door thrice.

"Go away, Jessica!" Beth called out in between sobs.

"I'm really sorry, Beth. I lost my temper and… look, just let me in." Jessica pleaded, guilt running through her voice. She heard the lock on the door click, the wooden door swinging on its hinges. Jessica entered, seeing that Beth had regressed back to the edge of the bed, sitting down with her face buried in her hands.

"I just wanted…to have everyone here, have a good time. Is that too much to ask?" Beth continued to cry, her utterance broken up by the sobbing.

"No, no. It's not your fault. We messed up." Jessica quickly replied, putting her arm on the Washington girl's shoulder and drawing them closer to one another. "I promise, I'll try not to get into another cat-fight with Emily again."

"Promise?" Beth said, sniffling.

"Pinkie-swear, girlfriend..." Jessica jubilantly answered, holding out her pinkie finger as well. There was a moment of trepidation from Beth, as if unsure whether to believe her or not. But she took it, wrapping her pinkie finger around Jessica's with a smile. Emily, seeing the open door into Beth's room, stepped inside just as the duo had released each other from their binding oath.

"I just came to say… sorry, Beth." Emily said wistfully, trying not to look at Jessica. "We good?" she added, biting her lip.

"Yeah… I'll take the cabin with Mike. Keep an eye on her for me?"

"Sure." Emily said, watching as Jessica walked out of the room, hips swaying with each step she took. Her resolve not to ruin Beth's intent tonight remained steadfast, despite all the urges to crack a joke at Jessica's assets. Sitting down next to Beth at the edge of the bed, she quickly spun the topic to something far less distressing, at least in her mind.

"You want to hear some gossip?"

 **Path to Cabin**

 **10:30 PM**

 **MIKE**

The howling blizzard was starting to come in full blast, buffeting the class president in spite of the layers of clothing desperately trying to keep him warm. Mike was already considering of heading back inside, thinking that Jessica would want to stay and comfort Beth when she needed it the most. So, it was certainly a surprise, his eyebrow raising just a little when Jessica opened the door and stepped outside right next to him.

"Hey, thought you would want to stay behind."

"It's better we just keep some distance from Emily, for now at least." Jessica opinioned to him. ' _No drama, no breaking promises…_ ' Jessica concluded.

"Well, this cabin is a really nice place. The kind of place for a sexcapade."

"I like your confidence." Jessica teasingly replied.

"We get up there and I'll show you." Mike winked in Jessica's general direction.

"Mmm… Can't wait." Jessica responded, following Mike's lead as they made their way to the cabin. Their journey took them through a clear path carved out years ago when the Washingtons first bought, then renovated the place. The very edge of the lodge grounds leading into the woods beyond, the duo were stuck at a white electronic gate barring passage to them.

"Huh, gate won't open." Mike attempted to use the gate, pressing the button only to receive a red warning light for his troubles.

"No power. Must be a generator somewhere around here." Jessica said, eventually pointing towards one housed in a ramshackle shed to the right of them. From there, it was a simple matter of firing it up and seeing the lights shine bright as soon as the generator started chugging away at their behest. As they were walking out back to the gate, Mike noticed something half-buried in the snow next to the shed.

"What's this?" Mike bent down, eyes drawn to a curious looking wooden block, with ornate native tribal patterns etched into it and red outlines dotting the entirety of the object.

"Looks like a totem of some kind." Jessica stated the obvious. Mike, curiosity piqued spun the totem around, eyes making contact with the butterfly shaped hole in the center adorned with red outlines. Once again, the viewer was taken straight into the vision, clouded by the blurry tone.

Mike watched as Ashley, wielding a flashlight, shone it on something out of view. Her clothes were completely bloody, drenched in red. The scene shifted, showing an alarmingly quick individual wearing a handyman suit and a clown mask move with lightning reflexes, squarely hitting Ashley in the eye, the young girl dropping like a sack of potatoes. The vision stopped there, tossing Mike back into the present day. Jessica, a look of concern etched on her face, bent down to help Mike to his feet.

"Mike, are you okay?" Jessica asked, bending down to help her boyfriend.

"Did you see that?" Mike pointed at the totem, eyes wide with fear.

"See what?" Jessica said, her face clearly conveying her confusion. Mike, still unable to comprehend or even believe what he had just seen passed it off as just a general sense of tiredness. ' _Just need to get to the cabin… and everything will be fine…_ ' he thought, somewhat naively.

"Weird…" Mike shrugged, rising to his feet. Jessica did not seem all that convinced of Mike's fast recovery, but like her boyfriend brushed it off to a long, long night. As they ventured further up the path, the direct route to the cabin was sealed off, blocked away by a fallen tree and what appeared to be a landslide.

"Can't get through here…" his hands rested on his hips as he took in the carnage.

"Should be another way around… We just have to…" Jessica moved towards a nearby mine entrance, leaning just a little too much weight on the flimsy railing, which broke underneath her arms, causing her to fall right into the mine shaft.

"JESS! Fuck! You okay down there?" Mike shined his torch down, relieved to see Jess alive and unharmed, albeit with a bruised ego.

"Yep, I'm okay!" Jessica shouted, dusting herself off with a look of disgust.

"Holy crap, you scared the heck out of me." Mike pressed a hand to his chest as if to emphasize the point.

"How do you think I felt?" Jess fired back.

"Yeah, can you climb back up?" Mike called from above, keeping the light shined on her.

"Don't think so. I can hardly see down here…" Jessica's eyes squinted, barely able to pick out much detail in the rock wall or her general surroundings.

"Coming after you! Stay put." Mike said, leaping right into the pit with her with a grin plastered on his face.

"Another one?" Mike noted, his eyes fixed on a totem with similar carvings and designs as the last one, now replete with owl symbolism and white outlines instead of red.

"Okay, let's see what's all the fuss is about." Jessica took the plunge, picking up the totem herself. Her eyes went wide as the vision played out in a haze, with her seeing one figure clutching what appeared to be a rifle in one hand and a limping figure in the other, dragging the clearly injured individual out of what appeared to be a long abandoned mining facility. Just like Mike, Jessica also stumbled backwards, the totem falling onto the gravel.

"What? What did you see?" Mike took her shoulders, gently shaking her as he asked her.

"I don't know… I saw… something… someone dragging someone else out." Jessica mumbled, head reeling from the vision. Mike looked down at the totem, the color starting to drain from his face. Everything screamed weird, not just the totems they had encountered.

"Can't be… Must be just some…really bad…dreams…" Mike just muttered.

"Let's just get out of here." Jessica put forth, the mines taking a more sinister mood and atmosphere all of a sudden, as least to them.

"Agreed…" Jessica nodded in response, shaken from seeing such a horrific vision. As the duo made it out of the mines, they failed to notice the stranger behind them, watching over them through their thick pyro glasses and bandana. Still hefting their trusty little fire-spewing hose, they continued to follow, silently praying that the sounds they had been hearing was just a hoax. ' _Please don't come out tonight. Please don't…_ ' their mind went, the wind buffeting the individual as they continued to follow Mike and Jessica.

 **Washington Lodge**

 **10:44 PM**

 **SAM**

Sam had retreated to the luxury bathroom right after Em and Jess' big fight, unable to figure out a way to console her friend. As she readied some candles by the tub's side, due to the lack of power, she wondered just how good a job she was doing for Beth. 'I really hope Beth makes it through this…' she silently prayed, hand reaching to twist the hot water valve on the jacuzzi.

"Sam!" Beth's voice echoed throughout the house, carrying its way to Sam.

"Yeah?" Sam called back.

"Want to help us get a fire going?"

"Um, well. I was kinda itching to get into the bath." Sam spun her head to face the open door.

"Oh… Do you want me to send Chris up there to help you?" Beth teasingly replied, seeing as Chris was the only male left in the house. Had Josh been here, Beth would have almost certainly mentioned him. Heck, he'd probably make the request himself. That was Joshua Washington for you…

"Very funny!" Sam laughed sarcastically, moving to spin the valve and let the tidal wave of steamy water fill the tube to the brim. Sadly, her smile turned into a disappointing sigh as she dipped her hand into the water and felt naught but the chilly water swirling within the tub.

"No hot water. Well then, Beth. Let's see if you can work some magic." Sam said to herself, moving to walk out of the bathroom. As she entered the main foyer of the lodge, Beth, Ashley and Chris were in a heated discussion around the fire, talking about supernatural occurrences or more precisely spirit boards that may hold the key to communicating with the dead.

"So, I think we have a spirit board somewhere around here." Beth said.

"Psshh… Those things don't work. It's a bunch of phooey."

"Nah, it's real. The three of us… We used to do that whenever we were up here. Had ourselves a blast!" Beth paused, briefly flashing signs of pain at the memory, instantly covering it up with cheerful gusto. Perfect timing as well, considering that Sam was just walking down the steps and joining their little band.

"Hey, Beth! No hot water is kind of a major oversight, don't you think?" Sam said, walking over to the others with a knowing smirk on her face.

"Must be the boiler acting up again… Chris, Ashley, how about you go look for the board? We can do a séance later." Beth rose up, quickly moving to give assigned tasks like a natural born leader would.

"Chris, let's go find it. It'll be like a scavenger hunt." Ashley beckoned to Chris, her eyes glancing over between Chris and Sam from time to time. ' _Darn it, Beth…_ ' Ashley groaned internally, seeing another of Chris' chances to confess slip away from him. Chris also seemed a little disappointed, though he did a better job at hiding it than she could.

"Uh, okay… I guess." As Chris and Ashley drifted away in search of the spirit board, Beth led Sam down to the basement.

"Let's go fix us a boiler." Beth rallied, swinging her hand in the air, finger twirling in a helicopter motion. Sam followed after her, marching down the steps where Beth grabbed a spare flashlight from the table nearby, the device clicking open and illuminating a small part of the area right in front of the girl.

"You noticed how I sent the two of them on a mission? I was thinking they could use some alone time together." Beth smiled, almost glad with her subterfuge.

"You sound a lot like your brother, Beth. But, yeah… Those two really need to go for it." Sam chuckled, nodding in agreement, scratching her head in hidden weirdness.

"I'd like to think that it keeps me in touch with them. Him and Hannah… Plus, my therapist said that it would be good for me." Beth replied, tone considerably restrained.

"That bad, Beth?" Sam sounded worried, immediately prompting Beth to shake off her concerns. The last thing she wanted to do was inconvenience her friend, especially when they were there to have a good time.

"It's okay, Sam. It's tough, but hopefully this weekend will do the trick."

"Well, whatever you need, Beth. We're here for you." Sam reassured her, watching Beth swing the door to the basement.

"Thanks, Sam." Beth smiled weakly.

"Where's Matt and Emily? I didn't see them downstairs." Sam spun her head behind her forward facing body.

"Emily went to get some stuff from the cable car and dragged Matt along for the ride."

"How many bags does she even have?" Sam quizzically asked.

"You're asking me?" Beth laughed, continuing to lead them further and further into the depths.

"Sorry to bring you down here." Beth sprung open the cabinet doors housing the inner workings of the boiler. Sam stood a little distance away from her, leaning against the shelf.

"Just get me some hot water and I'll be super fine." Sam closed her eyes, dreaming of the hot bath she would have as soon as they were done with their adventures in the spooky, creepy basement.

"Safety in numbers, right?" Beth responded with a smirk, running through the instructions in her head. Despite her lack of aptitude with mechanical matters, she had done her best to learn from all the books Josh had left behind. It was what kept Beth sane, that and doing her level best to remind herself of their memories, to not forget what had happened to them until she was ready.

"Okay… I think that should… do it!" Beth grunted, screwing in the finishing touches to the boiler system. Instantly, the machinery came to life, whirring and buzzing with the sound of water being heated to their heart's content. One another noise made it through though, a distinct and monotonous sound coming from further down into the basement.

"What was that?" Sam looked around.

"Who knows? Could be the machinery… or something more sinister." Beth trailed a few fingers along Sam's back and shoulder, causing the blonde-haired girl to spin around in response.

"Quit it." Sam said, a little tension building into a knot in her stomach.

"Ohmygod, Samantha! Were you scared?" Beth said scandalously, her face putting on the most surprised look that she could ever pull. Even her hands went to press on her cheeks, like the picture of the screaming girl in the Lourve.

"You were as white as a sheet too!" She accused Beth, pointing a finger at her. Beth took a little offense to that, balking a little at the accusation.

"Nope… Bravest soul right here!" Beth boasted, laughing all the way to the bank.

"I call shenanigans on that." Sam shook her head, stifling a chuckle under her breath. The sound returned, even more ominous than ever before.

"What the…?" Beth said, slightly disturbed right now.

"I'm going to check it out." Sam bravely took the bait.

"Be careful, Sam." Beth called out, waiting close by at the furnace. Sam gave an imperceptible nod, slowly advancing towards the sound of the noise. The further she got away from what she felt was safety, the knot in her stomach continued to grow and grow. Her flashlight illuminated the otherwise dark corridor, casting light on a small worktable to her left. As she spun her head to get a closer look, a sudden shuffle of movement caught her attention instead. Instantly, Sam came face to face with a man dressed in monk attire, a hockey mask pulled over his head.

"Holy shit!" Sam ran, the man in hot pursuit. Beth, seeing the commotion was far ahead of Sam as she raced ahead.

"Sam!" she called out, beckoning her to pick up the pace. Sam, in her haste knocked down one of the mats behind her, creating a small obstacle for the chasing figure. He tripped, nearly falling face first, grunting as he did so. While the two girls dashed up to the door, the man in pursuit. When Sam made to open the door, it refused to budge. Even a good sound whack against the frame did nothing but trap them with a possible killer in the scariest place in the lodge.

"Come on, why are these doors locked!?" Sam continued to press the entire weight of her body against the door, attempting to force it open.

"To keep out strangers…" Beth mumbled, eyes widening in horror as the figure approached, hands outstretched and his cowl hiding his face in plain darkness. Sam also jumped back, flashlight raised to use it as an impromptu weapon.

"Hey…" The figure moaned tepidly, his voice seemingly familiar to the two girls.

"What the hell?" Sam swore, watching the figure move to pull back his cowl, revealing a smiling Chris behind the prank.

"Chris!" Beth nearly fainted, clutching her beating chest and about ready to pop a vessel out of fear.

"Why? Why would you do that?"

"There's all this old movie crap down here. What was I supposed to do, not use them?" Chris looked smugly, pointing down towards the basement they had just come from.

"Seriously?" Sam's eyebrow raised a story or two, figuratively speaking.

"I think I need a change of pants." Beth broke the stalemate, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. It didn't take two pair of eyes travelling down to her lower region to guess she was telling the truth. Before the two of them could get a word in, Beth hurriedly ran out and right upstairs to get a fresh change of clothes.

"Nice going, Chris." Sam rolled her eyes, walking back upstairs into the foyer, Chris not far behind.

"What in the world are you wearing?" Ashley said, barely amused by Chris' getup.

"I… found my true calling." Chris made a cross motion in front of Ashley.

"Please tell me you're going to take a vow of silence." Ashley joked, her hands clasped together in mock prayer. Chris, still the jokester he is continued to speak non-verbally, his lips moving without a single hint of sound emanating from his mouth. "Okay, okay. Did you at least find the… thingy?" Ashley recalled their assigned goal. Chris to his credit pulled from his monk outfit a medium-sized spirit board, complete with pointer and spooks galore.

"Boom, here's our one way ticket to the spirit realm." Chris said, waving the board high above his head like a trophy, just as Beth came back downstairs, now sporting a pair of dark-grey yoga pants.

"You know what? No. I just had enough spooking for one night. Okay, so have fun. Oh, but watch for him, Beth. He's a schemer." Sam shook her head, walking back up the steps to take the hot bath she so rightly deserves and needs, after Chris' brain-haired stunt.

"Duly noted…" Beth waved her off for the night, laughing with Chris as he regaled both her and Ashley with a recounting of the tale. As the trio made for the library to carry out the ceremony, a faint growl could be heard from outside the lodge, looking at the fresh new arrivals with a gnawing sense of hunger within their stomachs. And as the night drew on into the final hours of the day, the creature let out a startling scream before scurrying away for much better, much easier prey. The hunt was on… And they didn't even know it…

 **Well, this took much less time as I expected. There might not be any updates for some time. Life has to catch up and in this case, it did. Until then though, have fun and keep safe, everyone!**


	4. The Hurricane Approaches

**CHAPTER 4: THE HURRICANE APPROACHES**

 **Welcome back to chapter 4 of this fanfiction. Thanks for everyone reading thus far. So, I've decided to condense the hour into one chapter. I wanted to get into the meat of the game much faster considering I have less and less time to write as the weeks go on. There will be character moments, just not as many as the base game had during its run. Hopefully, this will not ruin your experience. Without further ado, on with the show…**

 **Path to Cabin/Cabin**

 **11:02 PM**

 **JESSICA**

If there was a bank that dealt in laughs, Jessica would be the richest person on the planet in this very moment. After fake-screaming about halfway on their journey to the cabin, Jessica watched as a concerned Mike slowly ambled up the trail to her hiding spot. As soon as she had him in her sights, she leaped out with a hollowed out deer head she had found earlier, making her boyfriend jump back in hilarious fright, all captured of course for the masses to see and for Jess to become insta-famous, in her words at least. Needless to say, Mike was far from pleased with that little development.

"Aww, don't pout, grumpyface. You look so cute scared." Jessica continued to laugh,

"I wasn't scared. You're gonna have to try harder than that, Jess." Mike did his best not to look too afraid, despite all evidence to contrary, typical fashion for macho men who liked to show off.

"A challenge, eh? Well I hope you're strapped in, cause I'm going to take on a non-stop thrill ride!" Jessica boasted, leading the charge down the wintery path to the cabin. Passing by on a bridge overlooking a vast waterfall sliding down the edges of the mountain, Jessica and Mike had a relatively uneventful walk, with only a stop by a dilapidated shack that Jessica coyly made fun of to break up the monotony of the walking. Mike had found some sort of mask inside, a sort of gas mask that looked really, really old by the look of it. Just as they were about to get a glimpse of the cabin from up high, a loud snort of air broke the otherwise silent atmosphere, drawing both of their attentions.

"Did you hear that?" Jessica asked curiously. Mike shrugged. Suddenly, a shadowy figure leapt out of the trees, parting the couple apart like the Red Sea as they stumbled back in sheer fright. Upon further inspection, both of them could make out the distinct shape of a fully grown deer, dashing away in sheer panic from something else.

"Holy shit!" Mike fell backwards into the snow, landing on his back as the deer jumped right over the fence blocking off the path and disappearing into the night itself.

"It was just a deer!" Jessica clasped her hand to her chest, breathing in and out as calmly as she could. After that little incident, the young couple soon continued on their way, coming across a small little dilapidated shack, overgrown with weeds and vines plus a thin draping of snow to frame the little slice of civilization past. Mike had taken a stroll into the shed, while Jessica decided to wash herself off in the river stream nearby. Hearing Mike traipse up behind her, Jessica was regaled with Mike's antics as he waved around an old mining gas mask he had unearthed. Despite the good humored nature of the joke and Mike's attempt at calming their nerves, Jessica could not help but feel a tad bit annoyed with his apparent childishness.

As the cabin slowly came into view in the corner of their eyes, a strange hissing noise could be heard echoing in the forest. The strangled cries of a deer soon followed, with Jessica instantly noticing a think trail of blood ending at a particularly mangled beast resting its wounded head upon a tree log.

"Oh no, look at the poor thing…" Jessica gasped, an unusually sweet response echoing from the platinum blonde girl as her eyes gazed upon the injured creature. Its breath was raspy, braying as much as it possibly could. Along its neck and part of its body, several gash marks cut an imposing swath on the creature, its blood slowly draining onto the snow, staining it crimson red.

"Jesus, I don't think it's gonna make it." Mike muttered out of frame, shining his torch upon it, clearly a little taken aback by the scene. Seeing Jessica react so emotionally to the deer's predicament, he moved to pat the deer and hopefully bring it some comfort in its last moments.

"There, there. It's okay. It will be over soon."

"Oh, god… I can't watch…" Jessica averted her eyes, unable to bear the poor deer's suffering.

"It'll be over soon." Mike continued to pat the wounded creature. On the third pat, a loud howl echoed in the woods and all of a sudden, the deer, eyes still looking pleadingly at Mike was snatched away with brute force, disappearing from view. Mike stumbled back into the snow, Jessica dashing ahead in fear.

"Woahhh!" he yelled, scurrying to his feet and giving chase after Jessica, eager not to be left behind at the mercy at whatever was chasing them.

"What the hell was that?!" Jessica called out from in front, Mike bringing up the rear. Behind them, the creature saw two shimmering blue figures cast a wide target amidst the orange currently clouding its eyes, giving chase with lightning precision, all done unbeknownst to the young couple.

"I don't know!" Mike answered in kind, continuing to sprint to safety. They never looked back at their pursuer, never stopped to see if anything really was chasing them. They just ran and ran till they saw the cabin, at which point they continued to run even faster than ever. Tumbling up the stairs, Jessica felt her foot catch on one of the loose boards, falling forward face first. She could hear the thing chasing them howl with a ferocious scream. ' _Oh, god… Oh, god…_ ' Her eyes turned even as her head could not, bulging at the high-pitched of the scream. Eventually she felt Mike's strong grip grab hold of her arm and pull her up to her feet.

"Come on, we gotta go!" he said in a panic.

"I am!" Jessica shoved it away forcefully, her tone strained from the stress. Mike didn't even argue, only swiftly grabbing the key and hurriedly sticking it into the door, twisting it with fervor.

"Mike, get the key! Get it open!" Jessica brought up the rear, dashing straight into the cabin after Mike, her boyfriend quickly slamming the door shut behind her and locking it again. Jessica took hold of her chest and breathed rapidly, as did Mike, considering the circumstances. ' _Crap, that was… very harrowing…_ ' she paused to think as her hands felt for her strained legs, a little weak from the mad-cap sprint they made to get there.

"Oh my God! That was close…" Mike echoed her exact sentiments, doubling over as he sought to catch his breath.

"Holy shit, I feel like I ran a marathon. What was it? A bear?" Jessica panted, sentences interrupted with short raspy intakes of air.

"Yeah, gotta be." Mike said.

"I didn't even see it." She looked outside through the windows, seeing naught but a soft shower of snow pelting the mountainside and the forests that surrounded them.

"Those things are fast. Hey, don't worry. They can't get in here." He said in his best attempt to reassure her. Normally, Jessica would feel the need to argue, maybe even point out how bears could theoretically get inside if they wanted to. Yet, she felt far too tired to broach the subject, merely content to pull away from the window and move towards the couch, resting her rear on the soft material with a sigh.

"Yeah… Okay…"

"So, wanna cut right to the chase?" Mike approached from behind, hands folded behind Jessica's back.

"Slow your roll, buster. I prefer to be romantic with mood lighting and a fire to keep me warm." She spun her head around to face him.

"I could just cuddle up next to you if you need some heat." Mike retorted back. Jessica merely rolled her eyes, making a gesture towards the unlit fireplace and then to the dimly lit cabin that may as well have enveloped them in darkness.

"Mike… Fire... And mood lighting…."

"Okay, milady."

"Lookie, lookie at who's gonna fire some nookie." Mike exclaimed, waving around the box of matches around with a jump in his step. Jessica simply looked slightly amused, biting back with a sarcastic tone as she continued to look at the fireplace, as if waiting for flames to magically appear out of nowhere.

"You've been waiting to use that, haven't you?"

"Look at this beauty, Jess." Mike spoke with awe. As her head turned to find him, Jessica saw what he was talking about. Wrapped like a gentle baby in his hands was a relatively unused bolt action hunting rifle, fingers clutched around the stock and barrel. His eyes looked positively wide, to the point of being oversized melons.

"What is with guns that make men go completely bonkers?" she groaned, shaking her head at her inability to understand man's obsession with the epitome of overcompensation. ' _I hope not. Be a shame if he actually was overcompensating…_ '

"She'll never understand what we have together…" Jessica heard Mike softly whisper sweet nothings to it, further drawing her annoyance out to the surface. Soon enough, Mike finally got his ass in gear. Despite some hilarious fails involving breakers and shower curtains, Mike soon had both of Jessica's demands met. A nice warm fire to keep them comfy for the night and some basic mood lighting to set the scene for said night.

"So, what comes next?"

"I… kinda wish we had some booze." Jessica blurted out.

"If I'd known I'd brought some sooner." Mike scratched his head, Jessica noting his confusion at her abrupt turn around. Having given him very strong signals throughout the night, her behavior in the last 10 minutes seemed to speak otherwise. ' _Probably just a little stressed out from the chase…_ ' Mike quietly said to himself.

"I don't know… I'm just… not feeling it yet."

"Am I doing something wrong?" Mike queried.

"No, no. I thought you were one way, but you're kinda another. Does that make sense? It's not your fault." She did her best to explain.

"Jess, I really like you. Whoever you think I am, well… Just give me a chance and I'll show you what you need."

"Well, I like your confidence."

"Now where were we?"

"I'm sorry. I'm still kinda freaked out and it's hard for me to keep this up…" she pushed away very gently, nerves still a little frayed.

"What? Keep what up?" Mike responded, confused.

"Look, I act all confident and like a totally sexy babe but underneath… I gotta be obvious, I'm really kinda insecure." Her eyes looked downcast, as if the weight of the confession had finally crushed her spirit. ' _Great, now he'll think I'm some fragile thing to be taken advantage of._ ' She intoned rather cynically. Yet, she was surprised at Mike's next words.

"Jess, you have got to be kidding me." Mike looked askance, then determined as he quickly readied reassuring words for his lover.

"You have no idea…" Jessica said, disbelieving.

"Sure, I do. We're all insecure. But that front you think you put on, that's the real you." Mike said in an honest tone.

"Maybe… Maybe I know how to handle you too." Jessica teasingly replied, tapping her fingers playfully against Mike's clothes as they made a beeline up his body. From there, Jessica felt her memories blur in a haze of passion and love. First, she was wearing a heavy amount of clothing, the next draped only in a simple white t-shirt and thin blue pants while Mike was in a similar state of undress. The young couple continued to explore each other, laying chaste kisses on each other, unaware of the being watching them with a rather voyeuristic sense from afar. In its haste to seek prey, it trashed through one of the windows and made a loud enough sound to shake both lovers from their sex-crazed trance and draw their attention.

"What was that?" Jessica curled up back against the couch, Mike looking back at the main entrance with a raised eyebrow. ' _Probably just the damn bear again…_ '

"Stay here." Mike, still clad in his white sweater and blue jeans sauntered off towards the source of the noise, opening the front door as he did so. Gazing into the snowy grounds and the trees beyond them, he saw nothing pop out to greet him. Had he looked a little further, he would have seen a twitchy shadow staring them down, their vision a swirling mist of red and blue as Mike moved back inside the cabin, closing the door behind him.

"You see? Nothing here… Just you and m…" Mike was just about to move back to Jessica, in the hopes of continuing their little makeout sesh. Unfortunately, the stars were not aligned in his favor at that time. With a loud crash, the window behind Mike shattered and a long spindly hand reached out, grabbing Mike by the top of his head. The class president let out a guttural scream of terror, Jessica in turn leaping up from the couch with an equally terrified expression on her face, her hands flying to her mouth in horror.

"MIKE!" she bellowed, droning Mike's screams as the figure retracted its hand back into the night, taking poor dear Mike along with it. For a moment, Jessica was frozen with fear, broken only by the sound of stray glass hitting the bottom of the wooden floor. The girl slowly snapped out of her stupor, moving to swiftly retrieve the lantern near the fire as well as the hunting rifle still left within its case before she headed out into the night, intent on rescuing her boyfriend. ' _Come on, Jess. You can do this. Hold on, Mike. I'm coming…_ ' Jessica told herself very reluctantly, dashing off to chase after him and in extension the creature of night as well, Mike's screams carrying its way throughout the forest.

 **Washington Lodge Library**

 **11:36 PM**

 **ASHLEY**

"So it says here that to communicate with the spirit world, you must free your mind of all preconceptions, drop all inhibitions and generally give over will to the spirit master. Which is me, of course."

"It does not say that, Chris." Ashley chuckled as she took her seat at the table, Beth following soon after finishing lighting up the candles to illuminate their general surroudings.

"And all present will remove their garments at my sole discretion."

"Come on, Chris. I know you're a skeptic, but could you please take a little bit seriously?"

"Ohh, I'm deadly serious." Chris put on a fake British accent, brooking a wide smile from Ashley and a gentle shake of Beth's head before they all returned their focus towards the spirit board.

"Thanks, Alfred… Ashley, do you want to be our medium for the day?" Beth chuckled,

"Okay… Is anyone there? Can you hear us?" Ashley took her role as _'medium'_ seriously, her eyes remained at rapt attention on the board in front of them. A few moments passed, with nothing but silence between the trio of friends. The cold wind howled outside the window beyond, a slight gust escaping into the room from time to time. Suddenly, Ashley felt her finger shift and to her amazement, the pointer started to move of its own accord. Looking around, she could see that both Beth and Chris were as equally surprised with this turn of events.

"Holy shit…" Beth exclaimed, trailing away.

"Are you moving it?" Chris asked, chuckling with a hint of nervousness.

"No… Wait… H. E. L. P."

"Help? Help who?"

"Who are we speaking to?" Ashley inquired further.

"It's moving again."

"B. R. O. T. H. E. R." As the last letter left her lips, Beth froze. Her face turned rather pale, color starting to leave her otherwise rosy cheeks. Ashley shifted her head towards Beth, look askance with guilt.

"Brother?"

"Whose brother?" Beth asked, voice shaky as she stared blankly at the pointer.

"Beth, it has to be…" Ashley said, unable to think of anyone who fit the bill except Josh. Turning to Chris, she could see how the implication was affecting him. While not as distraught as Beth was, Chris was showing some strain at hearing of his best friend. ' _If I had just been awake, I could have helped him find Hannah and maybe…_ ' he thought, shuffling such thoughts for the time being. Right now, Beth needed them more and for Josh's sake, he'd do his best to keep her on the straight and narrow.

"Okay… Ask him." Beth finally croaked out a response, the sound barely above a whisper.

"Beth, we can stop…" Chris replied, only to be shushed by Beth.

"No, I want to hear this." Beth insisted, the finger placed on the pointer trembling ironically.

"What happened to you? How did you die?" Ashley relented, shutting her eyes as she spoke the words.

"B. E. T. R. A. Y. E. D. Betrayed…. No, we didn't! It was just a prank!" Ashley sobbingly replied, clearly distressed by the message being conveyed. ' _I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!_ ' she screamed in her head, barely holding back the pain.

"It's moving again…" Chris said. Sure enough, the pointer was on the move

"L. I. B…. Library. P. R. O…. Proof in the library?" Chris made an educated guess, just as the entire table shook and rattled violently, causing the pointer to fly right off the board and against the wall behind them and the spirit board to clatter noisily down onto the wooden floor below them.

"Holy shit…" Ashley stood up, holding her head with her hands and pacing around her chair. Beth and Chris were also standing upright, Chris looking visibly confused and Beth sporting a deep shade of red fury, fists starting to crack under the pressure she was exerting on it, in the figurative sense.

"This is just a sick joke, right? Has to be…" Beth muttered, starting to move towards the stairs without so much of a look at Chris and Ashley.

"Beth, no… We wouldn't…" Chris spoke up, looking aghast at Beth for her accusation. Beth, for her part was having absolutely none of it.

"I need some air. I hope you're happy, Chris!" Beth yelled, waving an accusatory finger at Chris before she stormed off down the stairs, angrily cursing at every three steps or so.

"Beth…" Ashley called out, her shoulders slumping when she received no reply. Chris slumped back in his chair, looking a little downcast. He stared at the board, unwavering as his mind continued to process what had just happened and what the 'ghost' was trying to tell them. Truth be told, Chris didn't fully buy into it but something had to doing this. Just what exactly, he wanted to know…

"Damn it." He cursed in a rare moment for him.

"Chris, did you…?" Ashley started to say as Beth's words echoed in her ears, Chris already moving to counter her statement.

"No, I didn't. Did you?" Chris defended, arms raised in kind, looking back at Ashley with wide eyes. ' _Can't blame her, considering my reputation…_ ' he conceded to Ashley's point of view.

"No, that thing just flew off. Should we go after her?" Ashley earnestly replied, moving toward the stairs. Her curiosity was what continued to keep her going, but even she had to cope to a little bit of fear lodged in her stomach starting to grow like cancer with each passing second in this admittedly spooky lodge. ' _I wish the lights were still working…_ ' she found herself wishing.

"I'm more interested in what proof the library is supposed to hold." Chris said, looking over the railing towards the stairs where Beth had just left as he stood up from his chair, following Ashley towards the library.

The library was a lot like the rest of the lodge, rather opulent and majestic for a property so far away from civilization. At the edge closest to the window sat a simple study, replete with writing implements and paper, most of which had a thin layer of dust over it. The walls surrounding that desk were lined with books, some dating back decades and all of them mostly academic in nature in regards to the process of filmmaking. Eyes taking stock of the shelves, Chris happened to notice several colored sticky note tags stuck in between some of the books, as if someone had used them as reference for studying. ' _Wonder if this was Beth…? Or Josh, even?_ ' he pondered, the thought of his dearly departed friend starting to seep back into his brain.

Ashley meanwhile was taking out one of the more intriguing books, a short one that spoke of the horror movie tropes and their significance in the late 20th century. The Washington patriarch was a noted director of horror himself and it was not unusual to see such a book. As she remained engrossed in the book, Chris had found a medium-sized photo of Hannah and Beth sitting innocently enough on the desk.

"What's this?" Chris said, picking up the photo. Spinning it over, blood red letters splashed with anger and rage popped into his eyes. The message read, ' _ **I WILL HAVE MY ANSWER! 16 YEARS, I'VE WAITED FOR YOUR PRETTY BIRDS! IF I CAN'T HAVE TWO, I'LL SETTLE FOR ONE!**_ '

"Whoa…Creepy…" Chris replied, drawing Ashley's attention from the stack of books she was looking over.

"What is it?"

"Now, Ash… Don't freak out, but I found this. It's some death threat." Chris handed Ashley the message, looking rather pensive. Ashley went through the same motions he did, first confusion then fear and followed soon after with determination.

"Chris, this is serious. We need to find Beth and warn her." Ashley said.

"Ahhh! Get away from me!" Beth had to scream at that exact moment, her voice echoing all the way into the main hall. Ashley, with a look of concern raced for the rattling door, clutching the once shaky doorknob and twisting it open to peek inside.

"That was Beth! Beth!" Ashley cried out, peeking out through the door. As the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat or in this case, curiosity dragged Ashley by the hand and dragged her inside into the kitchen, locking the door behind her.

"Nggghhh…." Chris heard Ashley groan, followed soon after by silence. Panicking and fearing for Ashley and Beth's safety, Chris leaned his shoulder forward and rammed against the locked door three times, finally breaking through on the third attempt. The brute force sent him sprawling to the floor and it took a few seconds to catch himself back on his feet.

"Ash! Hey, what the…?!" Chris' eyes went wide at the sight of Ashley resting headfirst on the carpet, unmoving and almost unearthly still to his eyes. A sudden shift of shadow in his peripheral vision caused him to shift his eyesight, startling him with the sight of a burly figure wearing a clown mask and draped in dreary overalls to better fit his psycho look.

"He…!" Was all that Chris managed to get out before the clown-wearing psychopath swung its elbow into his face, knocking his glasses right off him and watching it slide along the wooden floor of the lodge. Chris crumpled into a heap from the blow, knocked out completely. Satisfied, the psycho moved towards the unconscious Ashley and started to drag the teenager away by her leg, straining somewhat at her weight, despite Ashley's relative weight compared to the others. And as the psycho started to carry her out of the lodge itself, the crows that signaled a disturbance started to crow out at the sound of both incidents, as if to signify the true start of this horrific nightmare.

And right above Chris and Ashley, a bathing Sam heard the crows cry out and looked out the window near her Jacuzzi, readying to put on her clothes and move to investigate further…

 **Sorry if this chapter seems a little shorter. The plot for the next two chapters tend to focus only on two parties and that dries up a little. The next chapter will build on altering the story from its set baseline. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you all soon with the next one.**


	5. Fate, The Absence Of Choice

**CHAPTER 5: FATE, THE ABSENCE OF CHOICE**

 **So, here we are. The pivotal chapter… Now from this point forward, I'll do my best not to follow the canon storyline. Aside from a few bits and pieces here and there… For starters, no creepy sanatorium! Not yet at least… Okay, enough babbling! On with the show!**

 **Path to Cabin**

 **11:59 PM**

 **JESSICA**

As the night wind howled menacingly outside, Jessica hurriedly slammed her petite frame against the door frame, sending it flying by its hinges and letting the cool air rush past the young adult girl. She could feel her teeth start to chatter, her bones barely able to take the wind. Yet, Mike's continued screams forced Jessica forward in a rather reluctant fashion. ' _Hang on, Mike…_ ' she told herself, dashing with rifle and lantern in hand down the path.

"MIKE!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, nearly tripping on an outgrown root covered in snow. Her cries were met with Mike's frantic screams, which in spite of the situation remained defiant as he attempted to fight off… whatever it is that was dragging him to who knows where.

"Ahhhh! Let go of me!" he shouted in pain, skin swelling from the scratches and cuts starting to dot his entire body. His clothes were frayed, the fabric slowly ripping apart to expose even more of his skin to damage.

"Hold on, I'm coming!" Jessica howled back, frantically. As Mike's screams died down again, she came towards a fork in the road, one leading down a relatively safe path and one that while shorter, was fraught with an rushing stream, no doubt overflowing with ice cold water that would much sooner give her frostbite than relieve her tension. Her mind raced, eventually opting to follow the more dangerous route for the sake of time. Once or twice, she almost fell off the slick metal tubing, barely catching herself in the nick of time. Safely on the other side, she began to give chase again, egged on by a fresh set of screams.

"Get off me! Let me go!" Mike bellowed at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing amidst the jagged rock and snow of the hostile mountain. His fingers dragged along the snowy ground, his skin started to tear, nails now coated in blood and dirt as he frantically did all he could to hold onto anything that would buy him some time to escape.

"MIKE!" Jessica screamed, chasing him all the way to a snowy cliff. Hearing some rustling noises below her, Jessica unslung the rifle on her back and took aim down the scope. Squinting her eye, she spied Mike crawling away in the snow, his clothes tattered and his skin covered in cuts and bruises. The dirty and battered scope made it hard for Jessica to make out anything more beyond the injured shadow of her lover, uttering a bit under her breath with each passing second. As Mike tried to get away from whatever had taken him, the creature grabbed ahold of his leg and dragged him with relative ease, his body leaving a trail of parted snow behind in his wake.

"Ahhhhh! Help me!" Mike screamed, hands clawing at anything he could to hold his position as he disappeared out of sight. Jessica's body tensed as she leaned back out of the scope and slung the rifle back on her back. Two paths once again opened up before her, one safe and one dangerous. And yet again, Jessica was challenging herself and putting herself at risk…

"Come on, come on. You can do this, Jess." Jessica did her best to pump herself with courage, taking the leap as she slid down the cliffside in a bid to reach him faster. Snow and dirt kicked up in the young blonde's face, slapping her once pristine skin with mounds of dirt and mud. ' _Ugggh…. Definitely need a shower after all this…_ ' she briefly thought, just as the cliffside sloped off into a really steep incline. Her eyes started to bulge in horror. It wasn't some simple incline, more a one story wall onto possibly hard rock.

"Oh, shit… Oh, shit… Oh, shit…" Jessica swore, noticing a tree branch just within her grasp. Instinctively, she grabbed ahold of the branch and hanging very precariously by her painted fingertips. Slowly, she let her fingers slip off the wood one by one till at last she landed on her feet, safe and sound and back on the case as soon as she grabbed her gun and lantern off the snowy ground.

"MICHAEL!" Jessica called out yet again, receiving no response. Hurrying towards his last known position, she came across something she had never seen before during her many excursions up on the mountain. Right below here was an entire mining facility, long since abandoned and slowly rotting away

"No, no, no, no!" Jessica continued to slide down the slope, feeling her body hurtle towards what looked like impending doom. She reached out to grab onto the ledge on her way down, but felt her fingers just slip out from under her and with a sickening thud landed on her back on top of solid ground. The rifle clattered harmlessly and the floor and her electric lantern toppled towards a nearby rusty barrel.

"Owww… That hurts…" Jessica groaned, scampering to her feet, gathering her gear and hastily making towards the door. As she made it outside, Michael screamed yet

"No, no. Mike. No…" Jessica muttered, her feet hurriedly scampering over to the seemingly still corpse of Michael Munroe. Jessica looked at him, aghast. His body was completely riddled with bleeding wounds, his clothes torn into barely usable shreds of cloth and leather. Sprawled out as he was on the rusty elevator grid, Jessica thought he was a goner. That is until his eyes fluttered open and she saw his chest rise up and down. A wave of relief rushed into her entire body, her hands shakily setting down the rifle and lantern by the side as she made to reach out for Mike.

"Oh, god… Mike, Mike! Are you okay? Talk to me!" Jessica said, moving to help Mike off the rickety elevator. Above her, a wailing shriek echoed in the caves, though Jessica was too busy to hear anything except Michael's labored breathing.

Above the young couple, the stranger was poised and gingerly taking up the fight with the creature, letting a steady stream of fire that lit up the otherwise dark tunnel, keeping the snarling beast at bay. The person continued to back up into the caves themselves, letting the beast take the bait and follow them back, hopefully leaving the two young adults down below alone. ' _Come on! Come and get it!_ ' the person grimly intoned to themselves.

"Help…" Mike feebly replied, straining to pull himself up back to his feet but failing otherwise. Faltering in his usual bravado and strength, his body slumped back onto the elevator grid, the cold steel pressing against his back. That extra mass was just enough for the elevator to give way. Jessica watched in relative slow motion as the elevator started to creak, then crack. The grid iron floor started to sink deeper into the heart of the mines, taking poor Mike with it. She didn't even know what happened next, only that her hand reached to grab his and that by some miracle, she had managed to hold onto him as the elevator continued to plummet into the depths of darkness.

"Ahh… I've gotcha! Hold on, Michael!" Jessica felt her body slide forward a little. Despite her best efforts, Mike was just heavier than her and she had to quickly slide her leg between a couple of supports in order to keep from sliding too far. Mike's body was dangling, legs limply flailing back and forth, his face scrunched in clear pain.

"It hurts…" Mike grimaced, using his free hand to tighten his grip on Jessica. Jessica pulled him up as best she could, with Michael holding onto the edge as soon as he was able to.

"Hold on, Michael. Hold on." Jessica grunted, making one last burst of strength and pulling the jock up onto safe ground, falling back on her rear with a pant and a couple of strands in her face. She looked over to Michael, relieved to see him still breathing, albeit in rough shape.

"Thank you… thank…you…" Mike groaned, gripping the side of his chest, the shirt stained with blood as the two of them laid there, both just glad to still be alive, not even thinking about what was still watching them, having just driven the monster away back to their lair.

 **Washington Lodge**

 **12:30 AM**

 **SAM**

"What are you guys doing out there? Being creepy?" Sam called out, having fully dressed herself in her winter clothing and leaving the bathroom, her bag tossed straight into Hannah's room. Marching down into the main hallway proper, all she was greeted to was silence, save for the dull click of the grandfather clock at the end of the hallway.

"Chris? Beth? Ashley?" Sam called out, swinging her torch across the hallway. No response. The house was as silent as a church mouse. 'Okay… This must be some sort of prank… Those guys…' Sam thoughtfully shook her head, walking out into the main hall. As she took down the stairs one step at a time, her eyes suddenly fell upon the fallen body of Chris, slumped on the floor, flashlight laying right next to him. Hastening her speed, she was on Chris as fast as she possibly could be.

"Oh my god! Chris!" Sam looked him over, seeing a huge red welt on Chris' forehead as his eyes flickered back into consciousness.

"Ugggh…. S..Sam?" Chris mumbled, seeing the blonde haired beauty standing over him. It was tempting to think of it as a dream, to think that this was his chance. His nervousness stopped him from taking it further and the moment soon passed as he felt Sam shake his shoulders yet again.

"What happened to you? Where's Ash and Beth?" Sam asked him.

"Agghh… Some psycho knocked me out. I think he took Ash and Beth." Chris slowly rose to his feet, shaking his head to shake off the splitting headache he was experiencing.

"Steady…Steady… We'll find them." Sam stopped him from moving too quickly, for fear of his trauma becoming more pronounced should he make too sudden of a move.

"Beth?! Ashley!?" She called out, using her hands to make an impromptu megaphone. Chris had moved towards the nearby door leading out of the kitchen, throwing it open straight away.

"Sam, you'd better take a look at this!" Chris cried out, Sam watching the nerdy teenager jump back in shock, torch shining on the wall right opposite the door he was standing in.

"Blood?" Sam pressed her finger to the stain on the wall. Pulling her finger back close to her eye, she saw the slowly drying blood stuck to her skin, to her nail as well. Her stomach wanted to lurch, to hurl her dinner out onto the floor. Yet, she calmly wiped the blood away on an adjacent wall. It was hardly the time to freak out when her friends needed their help.

"Not good…" Chris murmured, stepping outside into the harsh winter wind, Sam following soon after. The trail was easy enough to follow. Whether it was by design or by accident, the psycho had left a trail of blood in his wake, from the fence to the snow and even a rock wall or two. As an ominous looking shed started to loom ahead of them, Sam spotted what seemed to be the source of the blood. A rotting pig's head, decapitated from the neck up was sitting like garbage in the middle of the path, a puddle of dried blood staining the pure white snow. Its eyes looked dead on at the duo, as if accusing them of its demise.

"Ugggh… What in the hell is that doing there?" Chris shone the light on the pig's head, face scrunched up in a look of disgust.

"This guy must be sick in the head…" Sam muttered under her breath, slowly marching past it with that familiar stomach churning feeling coming back to her. Entering the shed, Chris and Sam could see signs of a very deranged mind. Or perhaps even someone really in love with traps. Panning their eyes around the room, Sam and Chris were surrounded by a cavalcade of traps of all shapes and sizes swinging from rusty chains that creaked underneath the cold winter wind breezing into the room through cracks in the wooden beams holding the building up. In the middle of the room, several hunting implements and a fishing hook of all things were carefully laid out according to size. And in the far back, a small collection of stuffed animals were mounted on the wall, a thought that made Sam just a tad bit enraged. ' _Who could do such things to such innocent creatures?_ ' she momentarily bit her lip in anger.

"ASHLEY!" Chris called out.

"Chris…" Ashley responded back, feebly. She shook her head, trying to see amidst the darkness surrounding her.

"Ash, I'm here. Where are you?" Chris continued to call out, looking around the shed with an increasing level of fear in his throat.

"I'm… I don't know…" Ashley answered in a scared tone. She could only make out shapes in her direct vicinity. ' _Where…Where am I? Am… I…? Shit…_ ' she cursed when she felt her hands and feet bound to what felt like a wooden board.

"Are you okay, Ashley?" Sam held out her hands like a megaphone, letting her natural voice boom throughout the rickety old shed. Her voice was apparently enough to dislodge a small metal cage hanging from the rafters amidst many other cages, the metal clanging loudly as it landed with a solid thud on the wooden floor. Sam felt her heart leap within her chest, nearly dropping her torch in the midst of cursing uncharacteristically at the inanimate object. Chris on the other hand, slammed waist first into an old cabinet, hearing the material splinter under his weight. ' _Great, now I've gotta lose a couple of pounds…_ ' he said, slightly embarrassed with Sam in the room with him.

"Sam, he tied me up. I… can't move…" Ashley squirmed within her restraints, desperately trying to free herself. She couldn't see a thing, tossed as she was into pitch black darkness with only her friends' sounds to be heard in front of her. She saw a shadow stir right next to her, the posture suggesting that they were in the exact same predicament as she was. ' _Oh, no. Did he get Beth too?_ ' she mused, afraid.

"Hold on, Ash. We're coming. Just hang in there." Sam attempted to reassure, walking into the room in front of the two victims. Instantly, the lights flicked on, bathing all four teenagers in radiant artificial light. Chris did a double take, squinting to compensate for the intense light now invading his space. Sam shot her wrist up to cover her eyes, only for her jaw to go steadily wider and wider as soon as she felt it was time to see again.

"Whoa!" Chris exclaimed at the sudden burst of light.

"What in the…?" Ashley stared horrified, just like Sam and Chris. Ashley and the unconscious body of Beth were hanging from their arms, body in the center of a large wooden board. Beyond them, two tracks leading to them converged at a sinister looking contraption on the rails sporting a massive bloody rotating saw. Trickles of blood seemed to ooze like pus from its sharp tips, as if to proudly proclaim its homicidal intents.

"Hello, and thank you all for joining us." A garbled male voice echoed throughout the room, jolting all four of the teenagers in surprise. Sam only had to look up to see a simple speaker wired into their side of the room, the sound drum beating with each syllable booming out of it.

"Beth! Oh my god, Beth! Wake up!" Ashley cried out, Beth's eyes starting to stir open with grogginess, no doubt from her attack.

"Huh, what's going on? What's happening?" Beth asked.

"I don't know… I don't know…" Ashley sobbingly answered, her face completely awash with fear. As this was happening, Chris saw a door blocking them from each other. Turning the doorknob, the door clacked and clunked but would not budge open.

"Damn door's jammed!" Chris exclaimed in frustration, attempting yet again to break the door down.

"Tonight, we're going to conduct a little experiment. A sort of test..." The psycho said rather frankly and almost with little empathy to his tone.

"Ash, what is this?" Beth asked her, struggling against her restraints.

"But we're going to need the cooperation of our two test subjects. Bethany and Ashley." At the mention of their names, both Ashley and Beth looked up at the speaker in their side of the room in shock, then to the saw blade right in front, realization dawning upon them in an instant.

"What?"

"Oh, no..."

"But we're going to need one brave participant to help decide… which subject will live and which will die."

"OH, MY GOD! OH, MY GOD! OH, MY GOD! CHRIS, GET US OUT OF HERE!" Ashley sobbed out.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE, YOU MANIAC! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO US!" Beth replied in defiance, straining against her restraints with what little strength she could muster. Meanwhile, Chris decided to try bursting through instead with sheer force. With an almighty grunt, he threw his weight against the wooden frame. Alas, it did not budge and remained as shut as before.

"Sam, help me with this!" Chris called towards Sam. The second and third time around, they both flung themselves into the door, hoping to break it down through sheer will.

"On three! One! Two! Three!" They counted together in unison, normally something that anyone would tease them over. And yet, both times not even that was enough to will the door to break down.

"It's no use! This thing's bolted shut!" Sam said with aggravation, looking around for anything that might help break this door down. ' _If I have to go all Shining on this thing…_ ' Chris thought to himself as he joined in searching for something to help them.

"Please, please. Everyone calm down. It's all very simple." The psycho's voice filled their ears again, calm and collected like nothing exceptional was happening at that very moment.

"Christopher, you'll find a level placed directly in front of you. All you have to do is choose who you will save." At the last word, the death contraption sprung to life, the generator powering it seemingly activating on its own. The saw blade started to spin and spin in dizzying fashion, both Beth and Ashley staring down at it with the realization that this wasn't some kind of prank. This was far and away the real deal. Both Chris and Sam had stopped their searching as soon as they heard it come to life. How could they not be transfixed in absolute horror at the thought of losing one of their friends to the machinations of a madman?

"Oh, no… Please, this can't be happening. This isn't right!" Ashley continued to deny the reality of the situation.

"Crap, crap! Please don't do this!" Chris pleaded with the psycho, receiving no reply.

"Chris, please. I don't want to die! I can't go out like this!" Beth begged.

"YOU CAN'T LET ME DIE, CHRIS! I don't want to die!"

"Damn it… What should I do?" Chris turned to Sam, seemingly at a loss for words. ' _I… What am I'm supposed to do?_ ' he paced back and forth in his head.

"I…I don't know." Sam was for once at a loss for words.

"Sam, please. We're friends. Don't do this to me!" Beth switched targets and tried appealing to her instead.

"Sam, get me out of here…. Please…" Ashley caught on as well, prompting her to follow suit.

"I'm saving Beth." Sam made up her mind. Even if she liked Ashley, she had made a promise to Beth's parents and to Hannah's grave that she would keep Beth safe. It only seemed fair considering her failure in keeping her best friend safe from their… dumb… stupid prank.

"What about Ashley? We can't just let her die!" Chris argued, tossing his arm out towards Ashley's general vicinity.

"We can't let Beth die either! She's my friend!" Sam fired back, also arguing for her best friend's sake.

"And Ashley's my friend! It should be Ashley!" Chris argued, face scrunching up. ' _Oh, god… I can't pick… Think, Chris. Think… There's gotta be…_ ' As he was about to finish, Sam sauntered towards the lever and tugged at it, pulling the bar towards Beth's photo.

"Sam, no!" Chris yelled, too late to stop her. The blade continued to spin with a manic energy, the generator chugging away with a loud grumble that tickled that nerve in their spines. As if on cue, the psycho spoke up over the comm system.

"I see… You have chosen to save Ashley." The voice started, the track clicking as it turned and gave smooth passage… to Beth's lane. To say their faces were mortified was probably the nicest way to describe them…

"NO, CHRIS!" Beth said aloud, her voice echoing in the tiny shed.

"No, that was a mistake. That wasn't supposed to happen!" Sam bellowed in anger, running towards the door and throwing as much of her weight against it as she could. The door barely budged an inch.

"I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS, CHRIS! WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!" Beth screamed in sheer terror.

"Oh, god… Beth, I'm sorry!" Chris held his head with both his hands, fingers tangling in his dirty blonde hair as he stood there staring, paralyzed with fear. Sam continued to slam her thin body against the frame of the door, trying desperately to break it open and save her friend.

"Sam, get me out of here! Please don't let him kill me!" Beth screamed again, her body wiggling to pry herself away from the path of the blade, the sharp edges glinting in her face with cold malice. Ashley turned away, mumbling half-broken apologies to the girl she would soon owe her life to.

"Arrgggh…. Saaaaammm! Arrrgghhh!" Beth screamed, her mouth gurgling as the blade started to cut and cut and cut… With each second, Beth convulsed her entire body, as if still clinging onto the hope of trying to free herself. Her midriff was cleanly sawed through, its sharp edges tearing through flesh and bone like a pound of hanging meat. Eventually Beth went completely silent and still, head slacking back as her eyes rolled back up into her skill and her mouth remained agape, screaming no doubt of the treachery of her friends. As Sam and Chris watched helplessly, the saw finished cutting and with a sickening plop, the mangled bottom half of Beth's body landed on the floor, her intestines flopping out onto the floor and a pool of blood beginning to form underneath. Her upper half bled onto the still spinning saw, coating it in even more crimson red than any of the teenagers still breathing could take. As if to twist the knife even further, a trickle of blood bubbled out of Beth's mouth, her once white teeth now just a sickening dark red.

And then the door clicked and swung open, the psychopath now completely silent at long last. Sam, having slid down the door onto her knees remained keeled over, hands on her thighs as her eyes tried to comprehend what had just happened. Her best friend, the one she swore she would try to help in any way she could… Gone. Just gone…

"No…. No…" Sam uttered, tears starting to well up in her eyes as Chris darted past her towards the still squirming Ashley, who had her face tilted away from the carnage mere feet away from her.

"Ash, are you okay?" Ashley's eyes instinctively turned to Beth's and upon seeing Beth's face, eyes blank and mouth wide open with a look of horror etched forever into her face, she let out a deafening response.

"NOOOOOOO!" Ashley screamed out as Chris tried to cover her eyes from witnessing the horrific scene. ' _Beth, no… I'm so sorry!_ ' Ashley sobbed, crumpling to the ground traumatized and guilt-ridden with survivor's remorse. Ashley didn't even comprehend the still whirling blade hacking away at the wood behind Beth's body, nor the dull footsteps of Chris as he walked back towards Sam, still leaning against the frame of the door, dull and weary eyes beset upon the corpse of their friend.

"We gotta go, Sam. There's… There's nothing we can do for her." Chris said, biting his lip. Sam seemed to get the hint. Slowly, she pushed herself to rise up from the cold, unwelcoming wooden floor and followed Chris to help Ashley down.

"Hold on, Ash. I'll get you down from there." Chris made to untie Ashley's knots, doing his best to console his sobbing friend.

"I'm sorry, Hannah. I'm sorry I couldn't keep her safe..." Sam muttered, watching the body drip and drip droplets of blood onto the floor, the sound a wet and somewhat slimy plop against the continuous whir of the death machine.

"Sam… We gotta go." Chris said rather half-heartedly, unable to say anything that might turn that frown on her face upside down.

"Yeah…" Sam glanced back one last time before trudging glumly after Chris and Ashley, shoulders slumped. She had failed to protect her, the last of the Washington kids. Even if this psychopath left them be for the rest of the night or they by some miracle survived this madman's games, she knew just how their parents would react. Losing nearly all of them would be hard. Finally losing the last one left? It'd be a miracle to see them alive within the week…

"Sam?" She heard someone call out in the distance, shaking her out of her glum demeanor. ' _Need to keep calm. Still got the rest of us to think about for now…_ ' she pondered soberly. Looking up with her water-soaked eyes, she saw both Matt and Emily sauntering up towards them, no luggage in sight and hurrying towards the bloodied Ashley with a look of concern awash on their faces.

"What's going on? What happened to you, Ash?" Emily spoke up. Ashley didn't speak, her face looking extremely downcast at the snowy ground beneath her feet.

"Beth… she's…Oh, god… Beth…" Chris choked, head spinning in the direction they had come from.

"Beth what, Chris?" Matt asked for clarification, clearly confused by their scatter-shot answers.

"She's dead, man. Cut right in half!" Chris wailed out at last, memory still dug deep in his brain.

"What?! Oh, my god Chris! What?!" Emily exclaimed, hands flailing from her sides in wide-eyed shock. Matt also was taken aback from this blunt statement, though his posture remained defensive. Was this just another prank of theirs?

"Some psycho pulled some Saw crap on us. It was Ash or Beth… I… Just… God…" Sam sputtered, barely able to keep her composure in check. Her mind continually flashed back to the moment, the guilt burrowing into her heart and never letting go.

"We need to go get help now." Emily broke the silence that had settled, calling for action rather than inaction.

"What about Mike and Jessica?" Chris followed after.

"They're still at the cabin, probably 69-ing each other. It's too dangerous to get them, if there really is a psycho lurking around." Emily said pointedly. ' _No way am I risking my life for those two cardboard cutouts!_ ' she selfishly thought to herself.

"I'll take Chris and Ash to the lodge." Sam offered, looking towards the shaken duo. Ashley was now leaning against a frosty mountain ridge that coated one side of the path and Chris was merely listening in on their conversation, body shifting back and forth with a panicked frenzy to his movement.

"Fine… Me and Matt will go get some help." Emily said in response, nodding in acceptance of Sam's plan. ' _At least they have me and Sam here. I doubt these meatheads would know how to do anything without us._ ' She thought to herself with an illusion of respect for the blonde haired girl.

"No, you just want to save yourself!" Chris accused, pointing a shaky finger at Emily. He didn't trust her that much and more often than not, she was usually looking out for number one.

"Chris, calm down." Sam said quietly, gently pressing on Chris' outstretched arm and pulling it down to his side. If Ashley was in one of her better moods, she'd have giggled and smiled at this rather flirtatious moment between them. As it stands,

"No, I just… I just don't want to do anything rash. Okay?" Emily answered reassuringly. Chris, still breathing heavily had let his body collapse back into his post-shock condition, nodding slightly to Emily as a means of apology.

"Come on, Chris. Help me with Ashley." Sam nodded, motioning to Chris as she slung her body underneath one of Ash's arms. Chris did the same with the other. And as the five survivors split up into their respective groups, the wind continued to howl bitterly, biting against their skin. Their night was only just getting started and the mysterious figure watching them from the shadows knew it.

 **Hours Later, Blackwood Pines Police Station**

"You hear this crazy story coming down from that mountain?" A police officer spoke to his buddy at a nearby coffee machine, a whir of energy as he watched the device spray a long and thick stream of coffee into his cup, the most it can do on such a short budget. His partner was merely watching him wrestle with the machine, smiling at his friend's lack of technological skill.

"Probably just been hitting the booze, buddy. They're just kids." The partner shrugged, having seen so many drunk kids tell so many tall stories in his years in the big city working its streets.

"Must have been one hell of a party. Anyway, gonna go conduct an interview with one of them." The man finally grabbed his coffee, taking a helpful swig of it and humming to himself. ' _Ah, nothing beats a good cup of joe in the morning…_ ' he thought to himself.

"Have fun listening to fairy tales, pal." His partner left and marched towards the main body of the station, no doubt to fill in some paperwork. The other man, coffee in hand sauntered over towards interview room 1 and took a seat in a chari opposite his subject for the day. Due to the lighting in the room, the figure was cloaked in darkness, barely visible save for a pair of dirty hands on the table.

"So, Washington, right...? Tell me what happened up there in your lodge tonight." And the officer leaned into his chair, for what was to be another long morning…

 **Dun-dun-dun… I thought I'd put the cliffhanger here rather than later on as originally planned since I can't know if I'll be writing for this story in a while. So, just something to tide you over. Oh, to anyone wanting to have a small part in this story, just send me a PM describing a male or female character. The best one of each gender will become part of the story, where they'll conduct the interviews either during the epilogue or scattered throughout the story. The PM should include name, gender and brief backstory of the character. Nothing to elaborate, just something to add flavor to the character… Most of all, don't do some backstory where they know the parents or related to anyone in the game. Just keep it nice and separate, please. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the story. Happy early New Year and Merry Christmas!**


	6. The Cabin In The Snow

**CHAPTER 6: THE CABIN IN THE SNOW**

 **Hello everyone. Sorry for not getting to this much sooner, since I decided to put some focus on my other fics for the time being. I haven't abandoned you, so hopefully this chapter is worth the long wait. This chapter will cover the events of Matt and Emily's sojourn to the tower and the big meetup between the other characters at the cabin. For those worried I'm getting through the story in a hurry, the back half will start off with a twist and delve into more original content from there. With that said, let's keep moving along with the night…**

 **Path to Cable Car Station**

 **1:05 AM**

 **EMILY**

As the wintery wind continued to howl on this dark and dreary night, Emily and Matt watched as the distant shadows of Sam, Chris and Ashley all disappeared into the night, heading back to the lodge to no doubt recuperate from whatever awful tragedy they were trying to say to them, amidst their sobbing. Despite all evidence to the contrary and the fact that Sam, one of the few people she knew would never stoop so low for such a prank was backing their story, Emily's innate sense of curiosity stopped her from marching straight up the path. No, she had to find out for herself and as Matt moved to walk towards the cable car station, Emily strode down towards the shed.

"Em, what are you doing?" Matt asked, trailing behind with a look of concern etched clearly on his face, spinning his body to follow Emily instead

"I want to see it for myself." Emily responded, continuing to march towards the now ajar wooden doors. As her head finally turned the corner, she gasped and lurched back, clearly horrified by the sight before her.

"Em, I don't think… Oh, God…" Matt turned that same corner and got the same eyeful his girlfriend did. It took just as much willpower not to lean over as it did to projectile vomit into the floor. Wisely, Matt chose to sustain his willpower for the latter option.

"Beth…" Emily stammered out, the usually snippy girl all silent as she watched drops of blood ooze out from Beth's upper midriff, her face slack against her chest as her mouth dribbled now drying blood onto the cold dirt floor. ' _I can't believe the last thing we did in front of her… Oh, god…_ ' Emily mused guiltily, fists clenching in anger at whatever monster did this to her. Her thoughts went to Chris, who made the choice. In lieu of the psycho himself, Chris was the easiest target, one Emily was itching to shoot at in the figurative sense as soon as they were out of this mess.

"Em, come on. We need to go get help. There's nothing we can do for her." Matt sighed, equally sad at the loss of one of their closest friends. Leading them out of the shed and casting one last glance at Beth's body, Matt and Emily began the long trek towards the station, where they hoped to find some level of help from the police.

"What if we can't get help?" Emily expressed concern with their efforts, trudging along as she curled her body inwards to keep some heat inside of her body. Her fingers shivered tenderly, Matt also keeping his hands close to his chest as he exhumed a cold gust of air from his frail lips.

"We hide somewhere until morning." Matt offered with a shrug, just as unclear as to what the plan actually would entail.

"As long as it's not the lodge. That's where he'd expect us to go." Emily mentioned casually, clambering up over the ridge as the cable car station came into sight. From a distance, everything seemed to be in order and nothing looked out of place. As Matt came up to Emily's side, he had some choice words to say regarding her idea.

"The others will be there." He argued. It didn't seem right to ditch them and leave them hanging. Plus, safety in numbers seemed like the best thing in a messed up situation like theirs.

"Matt, we need to look out for ourselves. Sticking with them is suicide." Emily opinioned, looking back in the direction of the lodge to accentuate her point.

"Em, come on…" he pleaded for her to see reason. Emily would have none of it, folding her arms and furrowing her brows when she looked back at him.

"Why can't you take my side for once? Why do you have to question everything I say?" Emily countered, a bit of anger in her tone. Like any self-absorbed teenager, she thought her opinion to be of the highest order beyond reproach and poor Matt was suffering the consequences.

"Em, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to be helpful." Matt weakly fired back, only serving to anger his girlfriend even more. Emily seemed to shoot him a pleading look, but she crossed that with a withering glare, one that scared Matt just a tad bit.

"Then listen to me for once. Look, we stick with them and we make ourselves a target. The best way we can help is to get the police and get to safety." Before Matt could even shoot back an adequate reply, Emily stormed right ahead to the station, eager to get the hell out of here and back to relative safety on the ground below.

"Sigh…" Matt depressingly sighed, reluctantly following Emily the know-it-all's lead for the time being. The longer this trip went, the more Matt found out more about Emily that he wasn't too keen on. ' _Why am I dating her again? Oh, right… I'm the fallback guy._ ' He intoned sadly, watching as Emily was looking over the cable car station with an increasingly desperate pattern.

It was clear why as soon as Matt finally caught up with her. The station was a wreck. The door was completely broken, hacked up by a fire axe that was still sitting pretty in what used to be the door itself. Some of the bags that Emily had left behind were trashed, contents strewn out all over the floor like garbage. From the main area itself, Matt could see red paint sketching out a message. ' _DIE DIE DIE. Well, that's… original…_ ' he circled the room in a panic. Emily looked downtrodden, almost heartbroken at their chance of escape thwarted so quickly. Her temper flared and seeing no recourse, took it out on poor Matt as they argued back and forth on their next plan of action. Looking inside the booth, the couple found the controls but alas no keys to keep the thing going. A poster on the opposite end offered some relief though as Matt pointed towards the stenciled fire-tower at the far right of the picture with elation.

"We should head to the fire tower. I doubt the guy would have left the keys with Beth." Matt optioned, grunting as he yanked the fire axe loose from its grip while Emily nodded quietly in reticence. ' _Better than staying here, at least…'_

It took a while for the duo to reach the tower, fighting against the strong wind and the wintery cold that raised a sniffle or two from the unusually quiet Emily. Matt kept going, worried all the while for Em's state of being. ' _I hope she's doing okay. Hopefully we get somewhere warm soon…_ ' he mused. As they continued to march towards the far away tower, Matt came across a nearby totem, adorned in plain white markings across its butterfly carved hole. His curiosity piqued, he tenderly wrapped his arms around the piece of wood, instantly feeling his body melt away and his mind teleported somewhere else.

As he watched the vision through blurry eyes, he saw two individuals rushing towards the front door of the lodge amidst a heavy winter wind brushing against them. Matt almost cringed as his ears were assaulted with a cacophonous noise echoing in his ears, unlike any animal he's ever heard of. A figure at the door moved to let them in, both of them tumbling forward with sighs of relief as the figure closed the door behind them. Looking just a little bit closer, the figure at the door had a spot of blurry blonde hair waving back and forth, though not enough to tell whether Sam or Jessica fit the description.

Emily meanwhile took her curiosity to the cliff edge, not even caring about the half-broken warning sign nearly covered by a thin sheet of white snow.

"Don't look down… Don't look down…" Emily muttered, swallowing just a little harshly as her eyes grasped just how far the cliff edge was from her point of view.

"That's a steep cliff." Matt murmured to himself as he rejoined Emily at the Cliffside after escaping that weird vision, seeing the wind rustle downwards into a seemingly bottomless chasm. To think that this was most likely the last place he had expected to be at wasn't exactly a thought he wanted running through his head but there it was and it wasn't the worst thing to happen that night.

"Woah… What the…?" Matt heard the same shriek in his vision. It haunted him, scared the living hell out of him. If it could make three people act in near sudden desperation, then he didn't want to think about what would happen if they didn't escape.

"Matt, what is that?" Emily sauntered back, almost toppling backwards over the cliff edge. Matt in turn took a step back, the soft thud of his boot in the snow followed shortly thereafter by a pack of encroaching deer with red, misty eyes, seemingly possessed by some unnatural anger. The herd cornered the duo, giving them no avenue of escape.

"Oh, damn…" Matt surmised, gripping the shaft of his fire axe as the nerd approached them, forcing the duo to walk backwards ever closer to the edge of the cliff…

 **Washington Lodge**

 **1:22 AM**

 **ASHLEY**

It had been a while since they left the duo to go get help and Ashley spent that whole trip barely staring at the road ahead. Her eyes constantly travelled down to her hands, to her blood soaked sweater. ' _Soaked in Beth's blood, no less…_ ' she bit her lip to stop herself from breaking down. The road felt far, far too long for a normal walk. Was it the trauma to her mental faculties? Or was she just compensating for her survivor's guilt?

"Ash, are you okay?" Sam's voice echoed in her ears, a tinge of buzzing reverberating in her eardrums. She looked at the unusually quiet blonde, her lip quivering as she fought to say even the most basic of words.

"I'm fine. I… just… God, how is this night get so messed up?" Ashley tossed her eyes down towards her feet, blurting what everyone had on their mind. The incident was still fresh in their mind and for the life of her, Ashley felt like every step was taking an entire hour to process.

"It's okay, Ash. We'll figure… something out." Chris walked in tandem with Ashley, keeping just behind Sam who lead the pack. Her posture from Chris' perspective

"Thanks, you guys. I know it must have been hard to… to choose me. Especially you, Sam… I mean, Beth was your best friend." Ashley spoke, completely unaware of just how willing Sam was to sacrifice her. And as Sam looked back at her, she felt a lump start to form in her throat.

"I'd… I'd... do it again. Sure, Ashley…" Sam mumbled, that lump catching as she choked out the words. ' _I hope I never have to again…_ ' Sam wistfully remarked internally, keeping her focus on the path back to the lodge.

"Sam, about Mike and Jessica…" Ashley looked back the way they came, a look of concern etched across her blood splattered face. Like it or not, they were their friends and she hated the idea of leaving them behind to face… whoever it was that killed Beth.

"Hopefully they stay safe for the night. They're too far away for us to go and get, not without risking our lives." Sam answered shakily, which certainly did not go unnoticed.

"And if the psycho goes after them?" Chris prodded further, Ashley clamming up when he raised his voice to speak.

"I don't want to think about it, Chris. We're no good to them dead." Sam shook her head, banishing whatever negativity she could. It was no use to think about the worst case scenario. Hoping for the best was a much better use of their time.

"Where did that come from?" Chris sighed, pointing up towards the path. The way they had come was completely broken. The stairs that had once gave them safe passage was now in pieces, torn apart by who knows what. The rock wall left behind looked unsalable, at least to Chris and Ashley. ' _This must be that ass, trying to pick us off._ ' Sam angrily clenched her left hand, allowing a brief moment of rage overwhelm her.

"Great, how are we going to get up there?" Ashley moaned in frustration.

"It's easy. It's like a rock wall." Sam looked up, glancing at the medium high rock wall stretching right above them. She could make out a few grooves in the moonlight, a clear path slowly coming into form as she continued to stare. Chris, ever the joker was only able to muster a sarcastic result.

"Says the rock climber." Chris grumbled, eyes peeling up the moderate high rock wall, earning Sam a quick shake of her head as she moved towards the wall. ' _Oh, great… I probably pissed her off…_ ' he shook his own head, motioning to Ashley to follow.

"I'll go up and check it out. Keep an eye on Ashley, okay?" Sam said, slowly making her way up the wall, taking care to keep to a safer path. While previously Sam would have given in to her daredevil instincts and taken a much riskier path, Chris and Ashley were counting on her to guide them past this obstacle. And risky meant a better chance of getting hurt.

"Hey, Chris?"

"Yeah, Ash?" Chris continued to look up at Sam climbing up the wall as he listened to Ashley.

"I know it's not really a good time to ask… but you might not have another chance to tell Sam about how you feel." Ashley timidly said.

"You said it yourself, Ashley. Now's not a good time." Chris sighed, nodding his head in reply. Surprisingly, Ashley shook her head and pressed the argument with a relatively silent whisper.

"But… when will it be? It's never going to…" Ashley stopped mid-sentence when Chris cut her off.

"Ash, I don't think…" And Chris himself was cut off when Sam whistled from up above.

"It's all clear up here, guys. Come on up!" Sam called out, Chris gamely shrugging his shoulders as he began to climb up the rock wall, with Sam guiding him and Ashley on the procedure with a calm and level-headed tone to her voice. About five minutes later, they arrived back at the lodge, Sam shoving open the door with a sigh. Ash and Chris followed behind her, with Ashley plopping down in the couch opposite the fireplace with a weak smile. All that talking had done something

"Seems emptier now." Chris remarked in poor fashion, earning him a look of scorn from Sam as she ruffled through her hair with her fingers, keeping what little part of sanity was left intact. For a few moments, Ashley felt a measure of peace. Sure, there was a masked psychopath on the loose with them and Beth was gone forever. In the moment, all that felt like hours ago and she imagined something closer to the night they were supposed to have.

Then a female scream pierced the air and reality came crashing back in…

"HELP!" the scream went, jolting Chris and Sam to action. Ashley's head spun towards the front door, seeing two figures buffeted by the wind as they marched up the path, one of them leaning on the other as it limped forward.

"Is that…?" Chris said, squinting to see their new arrivals. To his utter shock, the telltale signs of blonde pigtails and jet black hair emerged and their friends, in pretty rough shape stumbled forward into the light. Sam hurriedly swung open the door and rushed out to help them.

"Jessica?! And Mike?!" Ashley caught up, staying nearby the door as Chris and Sam looked them over with concern.

"Help me get him in here!" Jessica shouted, nearly toppling over in exhaustion just to illustrate her point. Sam and Chris moved to help prop Mike up, giving Jessica vital breathing room to catch herself.

"Oh my God!" Ashley looked at Mike, mortified. She thought she had it bad. His clothes were barely held together, ripped asunder as it was. His usually bro-ish face was covered in scratches both shallow and deep, on a physical and mental level. She didn't need to look down at his body to know that it was a miracle he was even walking as normally as he could right now. ' _The psychopath must have really done something bad to him…_ ' she intoned, watching the three of them prop Mike up on their extremities.

"Arggghh! Nice to see you all too…." Mike grimaced, his smile barely cognizant as a trickle of blood ran down his forehead and his leg was starting to ache like holy hell. Even laughing hurt, his lungs gasping for air it wasn't getting enough of. ' _Even injured, he's still a smarmy ass._ ' Jessica snorted, looking behind as Ashley swung the door close, smartly choosing to lock it against any other intruders.

"Take it easy, Michael. Chris, please help me find a first-aid kit." Jessica soothed him, shuffling her injured boyfriend into a comfy chair before he could really hurt himself.

"On it!" Chris quickly snapped out of his shock, rushing up the stairs to the bathroom. Sam and Ash helped Jessica tend to the wounds they could, all the while accompanied by Mike's labored breathing and sharp intakes of breath every time he felt a stab of pain hit his nerves.

"Ash, what happened to you? Is that… blood?" Jessica's eyes fell upon Ashley's ruined clothes, travelling all the way up to the splash of blood across Ashley's face that she had to wear like a bloody reminder. Ash balked, lost for words. She failed to find anything, only looking depressingly towards the door Jessica had just come through.

"Sam, what's going on?" Jessica turned to Sam for illumination, face riddled with signs of distress.

"Beth's dead, Jessica." Sam came straight out with it, rubbing her arm with an awkward and sad tone to it. The look on Jessica's face was readily apparent. Whatever her feelings were towards the young Washington girl, that didn't matter. Death has a way of evening out even the roughest scales. Mike groaned out in pain, but he too felt the loss deeply. Especially considering that at this point, he was partially responsible for the deaths of all three of the Washington kids. Facing their parents after this, he would be shocked if the meeting didn't end with a restraining order or trial for manslaughter.

"What? How… wha… How did this happen?" Jessica sputtered out, sliding down to the floor against the chair Mike was sitting in, Mike patting her shoulder with a twinge of pain shooting through his battered arm.

"Some psychopath captured her and Ash. Me and Chris found them and he… God, he made us choose who to let live or die." Sam choked a bit as she described the horrific scenario to Jess, lip quivering as she watched Jess devolve a little further into denial, that oh-so-common phase of grief.

"I… just… saw her… like a few hours ago…" Jessica held her head with her hands, trying to grasp the situation and come to grips with such shocking news.

"I know." Sam replied in similar fashion, walking towards the fire and staring directly into the flames. It was a strange time to get philosophical and yet the fire was barely doing anything to warm this empty, cold feeling she was getting. ' _Who knows how it'll be before helps come?_ ' Sam thought cynically, not even daring to consider what trouble Matt and Emily could be in now. Losing one friend was bad enough. Any more would be heartbreaking.

"Argghh!" Mike tried to lean up, only to double back onto the chair, hand grasping his stomach in pain.

"Stop moving so much. You'll hurt yourself." Jessica chided her boyfriend, holding Mike down in response.

"What about Emily? And Matt?" Mike asked, seemingly adding Matt as a mere afterthought. Jessica paused, looking back to Mike with a suspicious look on her face. ' _Why is he so concerned about Emily all of a sudden?_ ' she pondered with a streak of jealously and anger. Before she could broach the subject, Ashley answered for Sam, a little color coming back into her voice.

"They went to get help. They should be back soon." She said, just as Chris hurtled down the stairs two at a time, carrying a small first aid kit he had found stashed in the bathroom.

"Here… It was all I could find." Chris handed Jessica the kit, she eagerly unclipping the straps and throwing the box wide open. Her lips pursed and her brows furrowed as she took stock of the contents. There was enough to patch up Mike at the moment, but the kit was far from complete. She didn't know what else would happen that night but if something did, there might not be enough for a second try.

"It'll do." Jessica nodded grimly, setting to the task with fervor. She ripped up the cloth into small strips, so that she could use them for some of the smaller wounds.

"What about you? You guys look like hell." Sam intoned, giving just one glance at both Jessica and Michael.

"If you're right about this… psychopath, then he dragged Mike out of the cabin and took him to this… abandoned mining town. When I found him, he was so… beat up." Jessica paused, looking over Mike's various wounds. Briefly, her anger flashed up on her face and it took a real concerted effort to swallow it down. Now wasn't the time for foolhardy revenge after all.

"I… I didn't get a good look at him. I was face…owww… first in the snow the whole time." Mike answered, crying out in pain when Jessica applied antiseptic to his numerous wounds.

"He almost dropped. I think I sprained my arm… pulling him up." Jessica winced, swinging her right arm around and hearing the bone creak like a rusty hinge. ' _Guess cheerleading doesn't really prepare you for life and death situations…_ ' she had a rare moment of humor.

"Okay. I did my best but you need to rest, Michael." Jessica pressed her hand down on Mike's chest, covered as it was by a mess of a sweater. Mike took it with a nod, motioning his head to the door right behind them.

"It's… cool. I'll just… rest my feet up. Go on ahead, I'll be fine." True to his word, Mike pulled his legs up to rest on a small chair nearby, though his face scrunched up in pain when he felt his muscles struggle to fight through the wounds on his thighs.

"We should barricade the house, make sure the psycho can't get it. Chris, here." Jessica held out the rifle by the stock to Chris, which raised an eyebrow from the self-professed nerd of the group.

"Why me?" Chris said, shrugging his shoulders in confusion. ' _Did Jessica lose her mind? What made her think that I would be a good shot?_ '

"Because I don't know how to handle a gun. At least not this one. Take Sam and keep a watch out for Matt and Emily. Me and Ashley will look for something to barricade the house." Jessica sarcastically intoned, shoving the gun into Chris' hands, the young adult fumbling a little bit comically before coming to grips with the weapon. Nodding reluctantly, Chris walked up the stairs along with Sam to scout the second floor while Ash and Jess herself walked towards the garage to grab some wooden planks they had seen earlier during last year's sojourn. ' _Hopefully they are still there…_ ' Ashley said as she gave a slight nod to Chris, as if to encourage the opportunity to do what Chris should have done a long time ago.

Whilst they had all moved to carry out their assignments, the same masked psycho crept up from the basement he had been hiding in, slowly moving in his handyman's costume towards the seat where Mike was comfortably resting and recuperating from his wounds. With a towel drenched in chloroform on hand, the clown-faced psycho pressed the wet cloth over Mike's mouth, his eyes going wide as he struggled in his tight grip.

"Mmmmphh…" he muffled out, bulging eyes briefly looking towards the second floor where Sam and Chris had just gone to keep a lookout on. But it was too late. In mere moments, his eyes rolled back into their sockets and Mike fell into unconsciousness, ripe for the taking.

"So sorry…" The psycho seemingly apologized, using his considerable strength to carry the relatively muscle heavy class president to his secret lair, leaving just a single note as his calling card. ' _Come and get him, my dear little test subjects…_ ' the psychopath thought, slipping away into the basement without another sound.

 **Another chapter and another hour in the saga concluded. I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Next one will probably take a while to complete so thank you in advance for those patient enough to wait. Until the next chapter, stay safe and have an awesome 2016!**


	7. The Sacrificial Lamb

**CHAPTER 7: THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB**

 **Just a short author's note since I don't have much to say. Anyway, hope this will reach you before I head overseas for some things to do. I may update during that time but that is entirely dependent on my workload there. As for this chapter, it will cover from 2AM to 3AM. I suspect you know how this part goes but of course I'll make sure to surprise you in the end. Or the next chapter… With that out of the way, let us continue on!**

 **Cliffs Outside Fire Tower**

 **2:01 AM**

 **EMILY**

Emily was terrified, her facial features conveying a wave of absolute pants-crapping fright. That much was clear.

The night sky, the low rustle of hoofs against the snow in front of her and the sheer drop behind them did little to allay her fears. The wind rustled up a storm to cap off the perfect storm of horrifying factors, causing both teens to shiver as the cold started to get to them.

"What are you going to do, Matt?" Emily choked out, trying not to be a freaking cliché and cower behind Matt, instead trying to put on a brave face

"Stay calm. They're just deer. Just checking us out…" Matt held his hand back to Emily, keeping her at bay from the murderous looking deer.

"They're gonna hurt us, Matt." Emily opined strongly, wondering just what kind of deer would look at her with bloodshot red eyes. ' _They must be rabid or something… Or wild… Nothing good, I'm sure of it…_ ' she intoned to herself.

"Shhh…" Matt placed a shaky finger to his lips, confidence shaken a little by Emily's less than helpful remark. The deer continued to stare blankly at the young couple, red eyes almost portraying a hint of anger against them. It was with trepidation that Matt held the arm holding the fire axe behind his back as he gingerly took a step forward, the soft crunch of snow only heightening the tension.

And part they did. The deer ambled back, creating a small yet traversable passage for the duo to make their own escape. A sigh of relief escaped Matt's throat, Emily quickly dashing after him. The deer watched them with token interest, shuffling and dragging their feet in their location as they watched Emily saunter over a waist high rock wall and tumble down to the pathway beyond.

"See, I told you it'd be okay." Matt patted Emily's back, brooking a rare smile amidst all this horror. ' _Fine. I guess he did have a point. Sigh… I'll never live this down when we get out of here…_ ' Emily groaned inwardly, trudging up and taking point for the remainder of the journey to the radio tower.

"Let's hope the radio still works." Matt said with slight optimism, jubilant over their luck with the angry deer and the fact that they had managed to go an hour without being subjected to the psychopath.

"If it doesn't?" Emily said in a pessimistic way. She would have called it realistic, simply wanting to ensure they had a backup plan. A contingency in case things went south…

"We find shelter until the morning." Matt responded quickly, also hefting his axe deliberately in plain view of Emily as if to add, ' _And if he does find us, I'll give him a good whack._ '

"As long as it's not the lodge... That's the first place the psycho would go to." Emily noted yet again. It was Matt's turn to shake his head. While he still firmly believed in safety in numbers, Emily had a valid point. The only question was, where else then?

"Let's just try the radio before we make a decision." Matt offered, to Emily's silent agreement.

The journey would take a good 10 minutes, forced as they were to weave and circle around the small hill that the tower rested on just to reach it. Matt was more used to an easy walk, taking slow but steady strides towards the looming tower with a sense of optimism. Emily on the other hand had a rougher go. Years of shopping and studying didn't wholly translate into pure cardio and by the time they finally reached the base of the tower, there was a noticeable pant coming from her.

"That's a climb." Matt whistled low, Emily unable to help herself by making one of her usual wry remarks soon after.

"What? You can't handle a couple of ladders?" Emily jokingly said, stepping forward to take the lead this time.

"Please, Em. Quarterback here." Matt thumbed towards his chest with pride, eliciting a chuckle from the young woman as she clambered up the ladder first. As much as Matt wanted to take the axe up with him, he needed both hands just in case the bars turned out to be too slippery. With deep reluctance, he set the axe down at the base of the tower out of plain sight before following Emily up the tower in earnest.

"Hurry up, lughead. It's freezing out here." She said. The wind seemed to howl in order to accentuate her point, the cool breeze washing over them as they gripped the rungs of the ladder, the metal cold to the touch. It certainly made haste all the more enjoyable and as Matt finally shuffled into the tower proper and Emily shut the hatch door behind him, he was certainly glad for a reprieve, brief as it would be.

Inside, the rickety structure sent a nervous chill down Emily's spine. She wasn't afraid of heights, far from it. But the gentle sway of the wind and the sound of creaking boards beneath her shoes washed her over in a feeling of imminent danger. She stepped outside briefly to search the outer perimeter, the gust of cold winter air buffeting her back for a split second.

The view of the mountains stretched before her, pure, white untouched snow gently covering the beautiful landscape for all to see. For someone so used to it, having been up here so many times, Emily took it for granted, a common thing in the midst of an uncommon situation. As she made her way back, her eye passed a small storage box labelled ' **Emergencies only!** '

' _Well, it is an emergency…_ ' she told herself with a sigh, watching a thin mist form in front of her as her shaky palm grabbed onto the handle of the box and swung it open. Inside was a small red flare gun, resting on top of one of the shelves inside. Gingerly, she yanked it out and popped open the barrel, seeing a glint of silver inside the chamber. ' _Alright, this thing is loaded…_ ' she said, walking back inside as Matt was busy reconnecting wires that had fallen out from their intended sockets.

"Here. Might need this…" She said, tossing the flare gun across the room to Matt, the star athlete gamely catching the thing in mid-air.

"Aye, aye captain..." Matt joked, holstering the flare gun by his side before resuming his intended work. Emily watched from behind, shaking her crossed arms side by side to warm her cold body. The white mist that was forming before her seemed even whiter than before and her fears of hypothermia started to cloud her base judgement. ' _Come on, lughead… How hard can it be to plug some damn sockets in?!_ ' she bitterly remarked to herself. Her eyes were trailing downward to her shaky knees that she didn't hear Matt clear his throat the first time around.

"Radio's working." He thumbed towards the radio. Like a rabid animal, Emily tore her way towards the radio, yanking the speaker from its handle and pressing on the button to send the signal.

"Hello? Hello?" Emily called twice before receiving any intelligible response, a plain masculine voice responding to her hails.

"This is the park ranger office of Blackwood County. State your name." the voice replied back amidst the static.

"My name is Emily. We're up on… Blackwood Mountain. We need help. Our friend was just… killed and some psycho is up on the mountain with us." Emily paused momentarily with each few words, the static a clear sign of a bad signal. ' _Need to be clear and concise if I want to get this across quickly…_ ' As she finished, she heard Matt gasp behind her, his feet shuffling towards the window as if looking for something.

"What the…?" he had absent-mindedly remarked, squinting to look at the snowy mountain below, the motion-sensor tripped and the light blaring out onto the snow-covered ground in front of the tower.

"What, Matt? Can't you see I'm talking to the cops?" Emily angrily retorted, her finger raising off the transmission button as she spoke.

"Something just moved in front of the tower." Matt warily replied, eyes still scanning the area.

"It's probably just a deer." Emily shrugged, just as the static cleared and the ranger's voice came back across.

"We read you. We'll send helicopters as soon as the snowstorm subsides."

"When?" Emily asked again.

"Dawn, at the earliest. Not until dawn, over." The ranger responded. Emily glanced up towards the moon still soaring high above the night sky. ' _How long away is that? It's gotta be soon…_ ' Emily thought to herself, her hand instinctively reaching for her pocket to check the clock on her mobile phone when she felt her body lurch forward for no reason. She wheezed faintly as her stomach smacked against the edge of the table, knocking the wind out of her.

"Em…?" Matt tumbled backwards, the tower creaking under the seeming weight of the room it was holding. Emily clutched her stomach as she stumbled towards the floor, bile starting to rise in her throat as Matt's voice got a little distorted in her wounded state.

"The tower!" she heard him cry, feeling a sense of vertigo overtake even the pit of pain in her stomach as the room seemingly tilted at a 90 degree angle, her arm clutching onto a steel cabinet that was pressing against the wall. Matt on the other hand was not as lucky, losing his balance and falling back first into the window behind him, the glass shattering on impact.

"Matt!" Emily cried out, watching Matt crash through the glass window, out into the unknown. It was only a moment to think, to possibly mourn, to even consider what she had just witnessed… And then her eyes widened as the very radio that promised their salvation came falling down on top of her and the impact knocked her out cold, her vision going dark in an instant.

It was ten minutes later before Emily would finally rise from her unconscious state, groggily clutching the bruise on her as she stumbled to her feet. All around her, the room was an abstract form of hell, at least for Emily. Fires licked the edges of the wooden room, the scalding heat contrasting with the chilly wind blowing down the… the tunnel?

"Damn it…" Emily uttered plainly, her eyes glancing past the broken window, seeing granite surrounding her. Evidently, the tower had fallen into the old mine shaft. Of all the times they had been up here, the Washingtons have made it especially clear not to come here, partially out of wanting to keep their friends and family safe from unnecessary harm but also to avoid angering the natives who once owned this mountain any further.

Before she could ponder the notion further, the tower lurched lower again, her heart seemingly rising in her chest as the sensation of mild turbulence overtook her. ' _I need to get out of here!_ ' she thought, racing towards the ladder and clambering up to escape. On the rooftop, she saw Matt, clinging to a half-broken railing as it teetered on the brink of collapsing altogether.

"Em, I could use some help here." He called out, with Emily taking cautious step after cautious step towards the edge of the tower.

"I'm trying, Matt. This is really unstable." She responded with hitched fear climbing in her throat.

"I don't think I can hold on much longer." Matt frantically responded, feeling his strength slowly sap away as his fingers squeezed around the railing to keep hold.

"Okay, just calm down for a bit. I can't carry you up, not with my weight." Emily reasoned, considering that she was hardly some all-star athlete that's almost all muscle.

"Try something. I'm slipping here." Matt clung onto the railing for dear life, his left hand hanging by his side like a limp noodle while his right was curled around the frosted metal, licks of flame from the interior of the tower drawing beads of slippery sweat from his fingers.

"Okay, okay. Grab my hand." Emily reached down and held out her arm. Matt pulled his left hand up to reach hers, only for the tower to buckle against the cave walls and sink down even deeper.

"Whoa…!" Emily teetered back and forth as she heard the crunch of metal and her core plummet a little as the tower continued to sink further into the ground.

"It's okay. Just get me up before this thing gives way." Matt calmly replied, despite the pangs of despair flooding his mind. Emily had no such filter, already panicking like crazy. ' _If I try to save him, I'll fall and die. But if I don't then he will… It's not worth both of us dying now…_ ' she convinced herself of Matt's doom.

"I'm sorry, Matt." Emily gulped, a look of mixed fear and guilt clouding her eyes. She slowly stood back up, seeing the outcrop right behind Matt. ' _I don't want to die here… I don't want to die here…_ ' she chanted to herself, trying to chase the guilt away, bending down to get a good jump start.

"Emilyyyyyyyy!" Matt's eyes bulged in outlandish disbelief, watching as his girlfriend leaped off the edge of the collapsing tower, landing with a soft grunt on the other hand. He chanced extending his arm out to grab onto her but her jump dislodged the tower, sending it careening into the abyss below. As his screams echoed down into the cavern, Emily peered over the edge and saw the fiery ball of metal and flame race down with a sickening roar, followed by an equally vicious crunch of metal.

She could barely move, slumped back against the safety of the wall behind her. A few tears started to form in her eyes, lamenting her cowardice and her inability to be there when Matt needed her most. She didn't even notice the small passageway leading out of the outcrop and into a mess of tunnels, so distraught she was in her current situation.

"I'm so sorry, Matt…" She desperately sobbed to the cavern, as if willing it to grant her wish. No sound returned her call and the young teenager slumped back to the ground, crying away her guilt as the moonlight dawned upon her prone body.

 **Washington Lodge**

 **2:20 AM**

 **CHRIS**

Spending time with Sam like this was always Chris' dream since he developed that crush on her. Hanging out and talking about their interests or even broaching the subject of a relationship. He most certainly didn't think it would be to find a masked madman and supplies to fortify their little slice of life in the frozen mountains. Now, he was resting against the door frame leading to the balcony, his hands clutched around the bolt-action rifle Jessica had found in the log cabin on her way back. ' _Just one bullet though…._ ' He grimaced, pulling back on the bolt to check if the round was properly chambered. Jessica hadn't the foggiest idea as to where more ammo might be stocked and the one person who might have had some idea was dead. ' _Gotta make it count then…_ ' he said, sliding the bolt back into place.

"The place is clean. No sign of him." Sam called out from the other room, walking back to the balcony area.

"Matt and Emily aren't back yet. I'm getting a little worried." Chris off-handedly mentioned. ' _If Jess and Mike could get into trouble, Matt and Em would be in as much danger too._ ' He surmised.

"Hopefully they managed to call out for help." Sam wistfully wished, crossing her arms as she stared out at the view before them, a peaceful contrast to their violent and tense situation.

"Yeah, I guess." He half-heartedly replied, not fully convinced. Sam kept deathly silent, her arms folded to keep warm and her head bowed low in thought, no doubt about the last few hours.

"Hey, Chris?" Sam finally spoke, breaking the peaceful silence momentarily.

"Yeah?" he said.

"About Beth…" Sam trailed off, the events all too clear for both of the teenagers.

"It's okay. It's not your fault." Chris reassured her.

"I know. I'm just… whew… trying not to think about it too much." Sam let out a deep breath before continuing to speak.

"Well, if you need anything, just let me know." He offered.

"Thanks, Chris. I appreciate it." Sam nodded, warmly smiling at Chris as they both continued to stare out of the frosted window, praying with all their might for the safe return of their friends. 'Nice to see that smile. Only bright spot of this crazy night…' Chris found himself pondering,

"You want me to take over?" Sam offered, holding out a hand expectantly in Chris' general direction.

"You know how to use it?" Chris begrudgingly handed the gun over to her, Sam gingerly taking it from him with a firmness he hadn't expected from the blonde young adult.

"Sure, my parents taught me how to fire a gun. Outdoors is a lot more than admiring nature and climbing rock walls, you know." Sam mentioned off-handedly, pulling back on the bolt then slotting it back in place just to demonstrate her talent pool. Chris watched with fascination, the dull thump of his heart echoing in his eardrums as his crush demonstrated even more facets of a headstrong personality.

"I wouldn't know." Chris joked, chuckling lowly.

"Right, because you're stuck on your phone all the time." She replied in response, nudging the teenager in the shoulder as she swung the rifle on her back, eyes staring off at the thin mountain trail leading to the front of the house. Chris leaned against the wooden banister, head tilting to his right as he gazed at her without her knowledge.

"Yeah, well. I…" he made to retort with his usual biting remark when Jessica's voice rang throughout the lodge, carried all the way up to the second floor where they were keeping watch.

"GUYS! Get down here!" Jessica's high pitched scream followed the two would-be lovebirds upstairs, causing both to bolt out of their slight stupor. Chris watched as Sam abruptly turned heel and raced down the stairs two at a time, bounding down faster than the geek could himself.

"What's going on, Jessica?" Sam quickly shouted back, only to see Jessica wordlessly point towards the TV screen hanging above the fireplace where a grainy video was playing onscreen. Ashley was on the sofa, hands gripping on the material as she too watched with a sense of horror building up inside of her.

"I see you made it back in one piece. Good. Very good." The psycho noted, their whole body covering the camera. Sam however spotted something moving from behind the masked figure, as if trying to escape while their attention was on the camera.

"It's a video-tape. It was left on Mike's chair." Jessica explained before Chris could attempt talking back to their ' _captor'_.

"Is he…?" As the video continued to play, the four of them heard Mike trying to scream through the cloth wrapped around his mouth, vainly as the attempt was. Through the grainy filter, a looming shadow approached the restrained Mike, shushing him with a steady finger to its clown mask.

"Quiet, Michael. I'm trying to talk to your friends here." The psycho seemed to smirk underneath that clown mask of theirs, pressing a tender finger to Mike's lips just to heighten the creep factor on the whole thing. It sent chills down the four teenagers, like some clichéd horror movie that they would have had fun watching if their winter getaway was still going as planned.

"If you want to save your friend, come down to the basement. You have one hour. Or the next video I send… Well, you get the idea." As the video ended, the four of them were left in stunned silence. Their eyes darted throughout the house. ' _Where was he being held? Oh, god. He's in the lodge, watching us…_ ' Ashley shivered in absolute fear, not wanting to fall victim to the madman once again. As Sam slowly started to shake herself out of her stupor, she saw a blur of blonde hair dash past her towards the basement. Jessica had outstripped them by a few feet and with shaky and sweaty fists by her sides, had that look of pure rage locked in her eyes, scaring even Sam of all people.

"Jess, stop." Sam reached out to grab Jessica's shoulder, feeling the young woman's body shrug it off violently in objection.

"I'm going down there to save Mike. Don't try to stop me." Jessica rounded on Sam, her words echoing with barely restrained rage. As her hand flew off the blonde-haired woman's shoulder, Sam recovered her step as her hand flew back to her hip.

"I'm not. But someone should come with you in case things get dicey." Sam suggested. It wasn't by all means a bad idea. They were kids well versed in the tropes horror often had, having spent many a nights over at Josh's place watching horror films, at one point even watching his father's award winning movie to the tunes of shrieks and hastily tossed aside buckets of freshly made popcorn. Going alone was suicide. Just as Sam was about to make her move, Chris had gamely put his left foot forward to the front of the group.

"I'll go." Chris raised his hand, Jessica nodding at his eagerness to volunteer. Sam stepped back affirmatively, glad to see that Chris was taking some initiative. ' _I was going to go myself, but they should be fine. It might be better, in case Matt and Emily come back._ ' She thought to herself, considering Emily might not be too pleased with Chris after their earlier conversation.

"Okay. Me and Ashley will keep watch in case he tries to come back up here again." Sam nodded affirmatively, gingerly shaking the rifle in her hands to accentuate her point. Behind her, Ashley cringed a little and took a step back, not wanting to be staring down the barrel by accident. The last thing she wanted was for Beth's sacrifice to be in vain.

"Stay safe, guys." Ashley said, watching as Chris and Jessica made for the basement, Chris snatching a spare flashlight from the counter top on the way down.

"You too, Ash." Chris said, leaving the two ladies to take position at their now barricaded front entrance, Sam gamely holding the rifle Jessica had brought back while Ashley continued to search the lower floor for anything they could use to fortify their position. Above them, a hidden camera continued to swivel in place, watching the group split up. And waiting in their control room was the psychopath, who gamely laughed and stretched back in their comfy chair as he awaited the two unsuspecting teens to provide with much needed entertainment…

 **Washington Lodge Basement**

 **2:38 AM**

 **JESSICA**

"Mike? Mike, you there?" Chris had called out, swinging the torchlight around the empty basement, the ray of light illuminating the barely visible room for the both of them. Jessica followed behind him, her steps hard and deliberate, taunting in some peculiar way. ' _I hope the bastard's listening, cowering in his little hiding spot like the coward he is…._ ' She allowed her anger to consume her thoughts.

"I swear when I find him, I'm going to wring that bastard's neck." Jessica motioned her hands in thin air, squeezing a pocket of it like it was actual flesh and blood. Chris nodded imperceptibly, trailing behind Jessica, torchlight in hand.

"I agree, but right now we need to find Mike and get him back." Chris nodded, keeping pace with the blonde woman. He didn't like the idea of splitting up, not with a psychopath on the loose with them. But Jessica's behavior was scaring him just as much, evident by how his hand was shaking and the beam of light started to shake in accordance with the flashlight.

As he stalked down the hallway, Jessica taking bigger strides down, a faint glint to his left took his attention away. Throwing the torch that way, he spied a faint glow on a piece of wood, a sort of invisible ink splattered across the unknown object. As the light fully illuminated that brief corner of the room, Chris finally noticed what was catching his eye. A simple doll-house, made to curiously resemble their current abode by way of some minor modifications to its base model.

"What in the…?" his eyes went wide as he took a closer look at the model house. He leaned forward to stare blankly, the assembled doll figurines placed so carefully, so accurately that he could not construe it as a mere joke or coincidence. Even more disturbing was that each of the dolls' eyes was pouring all a thin stream of black ink, a touch that that unnerved Chris to no extent. Whatever his reasons, his gasp attracted Jessica's attention, who made a quick turn-about to loom behind Chris to see what he was looking at.

"Woah, woah. Is that…?" Jessica gawped, mouth hanging as low as it could get as the sight sank in and the memories started to flood back into her mind. She had done as much as she could to block it, considering how she had been a part of it. It seemed like someone else had better ideas…

"That's us. Last year." Chris pointed towards the dolls all huddled in the room, facing an equally creepy doll of Hannah standing in the doorway.

"That doesn't make sense. How would he…? Why?" Jessica stammered, eyes darting back and forth between each of the crude doll replicas in turn.

"I don't see me. Or Josh. Or Sam. Or Beth. We're not even in the kitchen." Chris noted, eyes moving towards the miniature kitchen sitting to the right of the bedroom. There were none of the three aforementioned people in the house anywhere. ' _That doesn't make sense. If the psycho knew about the prank, then surely he must have known about us…_ ' Chris started trying to put the disparate pieces together.

"I think it's just whoever was in on the prank. Maybe… Maybe it's because of what happened to Hannah and Josh." Jessica opined.

"But why target Beth then?" he responded in kind. If Jessica was right, Beth would never be targeted. And if it was Beth, he highly doubted she would kill herself as part of the grand scheme. It didn't track right and it certainly didn't explain the psycho targeting Sam as well.

"I don't know… I don't know." Jessica shook her head, quickly spinning around and clutching her head. ' _No, no… This isn't real… This is all just a dream…_ ' Jessica muttered, the memory too much for her to handle.

"God, I just wish I wasn't so stupid. And now Mike… he's with that psycho and…" Jessica blubbered frantically, pacing manically in a full circle. Chris rose up from his prone position, putting a firm but warm hand on the blonde's shoulder, feeling the pangs of anguish ripple through his veins.

"Hey, it's not your fault. We'll get him back, Jessica. Okay?" His words were nothing but a band-aid, to Jessica at least. Yet, she took some comfort in her friend's continued support and took a deep breath to calm her frayed nerves.

"Sure doesn't feel that way. But thanks, Chris. You know you're nice when you're not joking around." Jessica nodded, grateful for Chris' support.

"Easy there, Jess. Don't get all mushy on me now." He jested, patting the blonde girl's shoulder like a sibling would. ' _Plus, it helps keep me on my feet…_ ' he wistfully intoned to himself out of earshot.

"And he's back." She groaned, taking the lead into the dark, creepy basement once more. Before long, the duo had found themselves in the den of the deranged psychopath. Photos of themselves with Sam, Jessica and Emily's faces slashed with some level of anger. Pigs hanging from hooks, their guts and blood spilling out onto the floor below like they were whetting his appetite for the main course. A video reel cobbled together from that fateful night, ending with an ominous title card drawn in what appeared to be drying blood. And the freezer in the back that they were just about to head into before a sudden noise from the door to their right startled them from their investigations.

"Did you see that?" Jessica whispered, hand pressed on the handle to the freezer, a thin wisp of cold air billowing out from under the door.

"Yeah… Might be him. I'm gonna get in closer." Chris stepped forward towards the source of the noise.

"What?! Are you nuts?" she said, her mind already considering just how many horror movies have effectively mentioned not splitting up at all. Chris waved his hand in Jessica's direction, ambling further towards the door.

"Just hang back. Just in case…" He mentioned, pushing through the door and disappearing behind it. Jessica wanted to follow, to stick together but that too came at the risk of being spotted and she didn't envy that particular outcome. So, she settled for the freezer instead, pushing the large metal door on its hinges and walking inside.

"Shit… Shit…" Jessica shivered, the combination of natural cold air and the freezer making every part of her body feel like it was being flash-frozen. She endeavored to move quickly through the room, not even wasting a single glance to the line of hooks swinging on their chains above her. Exiting the room, she turned a corner and was instantly startled by Chris' sudden appearance, to which she stumbled back and landed flat on her backside.

"Jesus, you almost scared the crap out of me." Jessica cursed, slapping Chris on the shoulder after scrambling back to her feet. Chris winced in pain, rubbing his shoulder with a pang of regret etched in his face.

"Sorry." He mumbled apologetically.

"Come on. Hopefully he's not around." Jessica said, throwing open another door into a dimly lit room next to them.

"Mike?" Chris peered forward, seeing a similar looking form resting almost peacefully on a dimly lit chair. His hand stretched out very timidly towards the chair, turning it around and hastily drawing back in the hopes of not falling into yet another trap. Fortunately and unfortunately, it was merely Mike as expected but he seemed silent, unmoving. ' _Oh, god… Damn it, man…_ ' Chris cursed to himself, not even daring to think about what Jessica was possibly going through.

"No. Please don't be dead, please don't be dead." Jessica murmured, eyes widening as she continued to stare at the seemingly still form of Mike. Chris gamely stepped forward, bending down to examine his friend. His eyes caught the cloth wrapped around his mouth, yanking it off like a band-aid before tossing it aside in disgust. He pressed two of his fingers against Mike's neck, the dull thump of his heart thrumming through his fingertips.

"He's still breathing." Chris exhaled deeply. Jessica wasted no time racing to his side, crouching down beside her beloved boyfriend and looking him over. The two teenagers were so busy watching over the unconscious Mike that they barely noticed a hidden door open behind them with a soft creak, the masked psychopath emerging from the shadow of its frame and take position behind Chris with a wicked grin hidden behind its plastic disguise.

"Help me move…" Jessica bent her shoulder low enough to rest one of Mike's hands, looking over to Chris expectantly. Just as the teenager took a single step towards them, the majority of his body alight in the relatively dim light of the hanging lightbulb above them, a bulky looking arm grabbed Chris from behind and held a gas mask to the young man's mouth.

"Agghhh!" he had gasped out in surprise, arms and legs desperately flailing in a bid to free himself. Alas, the gas slowly started to take effect and his eyes started to blink rapidly. Slowly, his body gave out and Chris faded fast into an unconscious state, the psycho humming a low tune as he tossed the gas mask and its container aside, a hollow clank echoing in the occupants' ears.

"Chris!" Jessica yelped just as Chris hit the floor unconscious, a dull thud echoing in her ears. She saw nothing but red in her eyes, like a bull charging a bullfighter. Her feet took towards the towering figure, unafraid of it out of sheer fury.

"You f***ing monster!" Jessica made for a wild swing, her fist thrown at the general direction she thought the masked madman had been and striking at nothing but empty wind. It was then she heard a low chuckle emerge, then a forceful charge as Jessica felt the wind get kicked out of her as the psycho slammed into her and placed her flat on the ground, quickly following suit with a rag doused in chloroform.

"Good effort! Really good effort!" The psycho's voice echoed in Jessica's ears, slowly but surely drifiting into wordless slurs as the chemicals took hold and her senses started to fail her. Her eyes battled to stay awake, the chloroform worming her way into her blood stream. Rapid blinks soon followed and before long, the shapes started to blur as streaks of black clouded the edges of her vision.

"Mmmmpphhh…" she weakly and tokenly resisted, finally losing conscious just as she felt her hand land on the ragged floor with a dull thud.

It was several minutes or so later that Jessica would even have a hint of conscious thought, awoken as it was by the sudden sound of Mike's distinct voice.

"Jess…" His voice sounded so slurry. ' _Ugghh… Please tell me this is a bad dream… I just want to wake up in the cabin, snuggled by a cozy fire…_ ' she murmured incoherently to herself, the chloroform still working within her body.

"Jess!" It was his second shout that finally jolted the blonde teenager awake, her body shooting upwards as she shook her head to ward off the dull headache pounding away at her mind. Instinctively, she made to move her hands. She heard something brush against her wrist. ' _Ropes? The hell…?_ ' she noted as she looked down, her vision still somewhat blurry. It felt loose, like she might be able to slip her hand through given enough time.

"Mike? You okay?" she asked, starting to struggle against the handcuffs in earnest, eyes keeping full focus on her boyfriend.

"I'm okay. You?" Mike nodded, albeit with a rapidly failing demeanor. ' _Come on, stay awake, Mike! Don't quit on me now…_ ' she expressed to herself as she continued to wriggle in place.

"I'm okay. Chris, are you…?" her eyes went to Chris, now sporting a huge bruise on his forehead that he was rubbing. ' _Wait, why does he have his hand free?_ ' Jessica wondered, a faint suspicion starting to formulate in her head.

"Don't worry, I'm fine. Aggghhh… Damn bastard clobbered me. He gave me too little of the sleeping gas." Chris surmised, only recalling how he had briefly awoken whilst being dragged by his legs towards the chairs they were currently strapped to. He had screamed at the top of his lungs, putting hope on a small chance of Ashley and Sam hearing his desperate cries for help. For his trouble, the psycho had let out a huge sigh at this minor ' _inconvenience_ ' and corrected it with a swift jab to his forehead, silencing him yet again.

"Hello again, my little test subjects." As if speaking of the devil, the three teenagers heard the psycho's voice echo from speakers surrounding the room.

"Hey! Come on out, you coward! What, you too afraid to face us?" Jessica challenged in an un-categorically brave tone for the blonde woman.

"Jess, not really the time." Mike grimaced amidst the hearty chuckles of the psychopath, eyes watering a little as he felt his chest ache in pain with each gasp of air filling his lungs.

"You should listen to Michael, Jessica. Better yet, you should listen to Christopher." The psychopath chimed in with a delirious song in their tone, their delight at their misery shaking Jessica's newfound confidence by a tick.

"What do you want, you murderer?"

"Chris has made one fatal choice today." The psycho said plainly. Just one sentence was enough to clue them in as to their captor's intent.

"No, no…" Mike muttered lowly, his head spinning to see the table sitting in the middle of room. On cue, the lightbulb above it flickered to life and illuminated the room even further, revealing a fully loaded handgun on the table. Jessica could hear an audible gulp escape Chris as he hesitantly reached for the firearm with his free hand.

"Now you can take that gun and shoot Jessica, shoot Michael or you can shoot yourself. Whoever's left can walk away scot free. The choice is yours." On the psycho's last word, all three of the young adults could hear a piercing buzz start up above them, the color draining from their complexion as three dangerous sawblades started to slowly descend upon them, drops of dried blood coating its sharp blades as another element of torment.

"Screw you, you piece of turd!" Chris screamed, hand raising the pistol up high and firing off three rounds at the machinery in righteous fury. The machine continued to whir and the blades continued to slowly inch their way down towards the hapless trio.

"Hahahaha… Don't be so silly, Chris." The psychopath taunted, laughing maniacally before he allowed the silence to overtake the young adults yet again. Inevitably, tensions started to mount rapidly. Five seconds of struggling elapsed. Five seconds where they wanted to fight back, to secure the best possible outcome. Yet Jessica stopped, aware they had little time to make a decision.

"Chris, shoot me." Her tone flattened, head drooped low.

"What?! No, not happening!" Chris vehemently opposed the notion, frantically trying to free himself considering he had a free hand to spare. Again he tugged at the ropes and again his hands pulled away with splotches of red against his flesh, frustration rising in his body.

"It's my fault Josh and Hannah are dead. If it means you guys get to live, then let this be the last thing I do." Jessica pleaded, only for Mike to put his own two cents in the mix.

"No, Chris. Shoot me. Look at me. I'll only slow you down. I'm at fault too."

"No, Mike. You're not going to die." Jessica snapped at him for what she deemed to be insanity. ' _We came down for you. I'll be damned if we don't leave without you!_ ' she told herself, eyes staring down Mike with purpose.

"Neither are you, Jess." Chris said in a robotic tone, uncharacteristic of the usual jokester persona he had perfected over the years. It meant only one thing to Jessica and Mike, something that they certainly had forgotten to account for despite the psychopath having laid out all the rules beforehand.

"Chris, don't." Mike found the nerve to speak, while Jessica looked at him with a hurried shake of her head.

"You deserve to be together. I mean… who gives a crap about me?" Chris said in a defeatist tone, head drooped low in a way that allowed only the top of his head to be seen by Jessica.

"Chris, don't. Ashley's waiting for you. You two…" Jessica attempted to dissuade him, only for Chris to slam the gun on the armrest of his chair in sheer frustration, hastily quieting Mike and Jessica from further conversation.

"It's not Ashley!" Chris bellowed, the stress of the situation starting to root itself in his brain. As the blades started to inch closer and closer down towards their heads, the whir of the high-velocity blades echoing in their ears, Chris gripped the handle of the gun a little tighter than usual.

"I… I… I'm in love… no, was in love with Sam. And now, I won't get a chance to tell her how I feel. I'm such an idiot." Chris smacked the gun against his chair in frustration, Mike jumping a little in place as he looked at the geeky kid that used to be brunt of a lot of jokes start to unravel just a little in front of them.

"Chris, come on! Shoot me! You can tell her yourself when you and Mike get out of this!" Jessica pleaded, struggling against her bindings with fresh resolve. She could feel the rope loosen. ' _Just a little more… Come on, Jessica!_ ' she hyped herself up. Unfortunately, she saw Chris' body cease its trembling and his eyes brimming with reluctant courage.

"Tell Sam… Tell Sam… Tell her I loved her." Chris choked out tearfully, entire body shaking as he slowly raised the gun to his temple. The metal seemed cold to the touch and soothing in some weird way, ironic considering the very nature of the weapon in question. Jessica and Mike struggled in their chairs, straining against the ropes tied around their bodies while simultaneously trying to ignore the whirring sawblades slowly descending on all three of them. As their faces scrunched up in exasperation and sheer desperation, Jessica felt time start to slow down as she saw Chris pull back on the hammer with grim determination and the sound of it clicking back in place echoed in her ears.

"CHRIS, NO!" Jessica screamed desperately. Chris however had made up his mind, his finger curling around the trigger and pulling down with swift action. The hammer creaked back into the gun

"NO!" As the shot rang out, the lights went out and bathed the trio in complete darkness. Jessica could only make out the muzzle flash before the light dimmed, the faint shadow of their friend tumbling sideways in his chair and crumpling to the floor. ' _Dead. He's… dead…_ ' Jessica muttered, guiltily looking over to the other shifting figure she knew to be her injured boyfriend. ' _Why are we still alive…?_ ' she thought in a classic sense of survivor's guilt.

"How unexpected… I would not have considered that outcome." The psycho's voice taunted over the intercom, a single click indicating to the traumatized couple that they had little time to waste with goodbyes. Jessica tugged at her restraints, her skin chaffing against the ropes. With an exalted grunt, she pulled her arms free and rushed to pull Mike up to his feet, the former class president giving a yelp of pain as he felt blood rush down to his lower body properly.

In that dim light, Jessica could barely make out anything. Only Chris' toppled body across her was close enough to make out. Everything else was simply pitch black. The silence only made the sight even harder to stomach, the young blonde struggling to bite back bile starting to build up in her throat.

"I'm sorry, Chris." Jessica muttered, biting her lip in guilt. ' _What am I supposed to tell the others? What am I supposed to tell Sam?_ ' she bitterly thought, resolved at the very least to convey Chris' true romantic intents if it was the last thing she did on this blasted rock.

"Can you walk, Mike?" she asked, feeling his arm wrap around her back for support.

"Yeah… Just give me a second…" Mike grunted, wrapping his other arm on his stomach as he made a nervous gulp. ' _Can't… Can't let her know that I'm a little out of it…_ ' Mike nervously concluded, not wanting to become another victim in the psychopath's killing game.

"Come on, we need to go find the others." Jessica made towards a general direction with caution, though Mike was quick to state the obvious to the blonde young adult.

"I can't see the exit." Mike slackened his grip, eyes squinting to see anything useful in the dark. Jessica was also trying her darndest to make out something in the dark landscape in front of them.

"Boo!" A sudden cry startled Jessica, the figure of the masked psychopath now standing directly in front of them. Eyes wide with terror, the couple hurtled backwards, Jessica's left arm smacking against the wooden leg of one of the chairs. Mike groaned in pain again, his hand flying up in a weak attempt to defend them from the psycho. As the figure advanced on Mike, all Jessica could think of was to reach for Chris' gun and bring it to bear so she could give the maniac the lead shower they rightfully deserved. ' _You're not getting another one of us!_ ' she thought to herself, throwing her body forward and yanking the pistol out of Chris' hand.

And in the floor above, both Sam and Ashley abruptly spun in alarm towards the general direction of the basement as three ear-piercing shots rang out, both teenagers immediately dashing to either save or avenge their friends…

 **Mines**

 **2:56 AM**

 **?**

The winter held no grasp on the stranger any longer. Aside from the thick fur coat covering their body, the smell of gasoline filling their nostrils and the thick goggles covering their eyes, they had been on the mountain for long enough to understand its harshest punishments. To them, it was nothing. Except of course, for those teenagers back up on the mountain.

They felt the ground shake underneath them, boots quaking as they struggled to retain balance. ' _Something's wrong…_ ' they thought almost instinctively, taking huge strides to reach the source of the noise. The sight before them gave her moment for pause. To their right, small licks of flame flickered around bits of metal, a thin layer of smoke filling the small chamber the stranger found themselves in. To the far end of the chamber, there stood a lone teenager with jet black hair and designer clothes holding onto her arm. She looked like she was panting, no doubt trying to recover from whatever had occurred. ' _Must be one of them from the lodge. What the heck are they doing all the way out here?_ ' they thought as they approached.

"What are you doing?" The stranger called out, shocking the young woman as she spun around to face what she considered to be a very dangerous looking individual with a weapon designed to inflict maximum damage and pain to its opponents.

"Stay away from me!" Emily bellowed out, the frazzled young adult backing away from the stranger, her eyes darting nervously at the giant gas tanks on their back and the handmade flamethrower whose nozzle was pointed directly at her.

"Calm down for a second." The stranger said, pressing a stout gloved finger to its facial mask, head shifting behind with a look of fear in their visible facial features.

"No! Get back!" Emily kicked a rock at the encroaching figure, the small stone striking the stranger's leg. It wasn't hard, the stranger merely looking annoyed with her little intrusion. Emily was already fearing the worst, only to hear a high-pitched scream cry out followed soon after by a guttural growl.

Instantly, the stranger's eyes widened like discs and they spun around to face the entrance they had just come from. Their eyes squinted, as did Emily's in order to make a thin, lanky figure skittering on its hind legs towards them. Its eyes darted back and forth between the two potential meals, a shadow cast over most of its body with only its milk white eyes illuminated by faint moonlight coming from the crevice right above them.

"Run." The stranger slowly inched backward, their body shifting to protect Emily from any potential harm. Emily had no choice but to follow suit, seeing no particular reason to take chances with a strange and almost certainly hostile being over a hooded figure.

"Run!" The stranger finally screamed, grabbing Emily by the jacket and pulling down the tunnel in a mad dash. The stranger barely looked back as they ran, sending occasional jets of flame to dissuade the creature from pursuing them. Minutes later, they came to a halt in another larger chamber overlooking the mountain crop that Emily and Matt almost had the pleasure of falling over. Moonlight shone down on the two, bathing them in its glow, a moment of beauty in a night gone so utterly wrong. For Emily that is…

"Get back to the lodge. It's safe there." The stranger instructed, looking dead serious at Emily, a single gloved hand firmly entrenched on the young woman's shoulder. She whimpered a little as she heard the beast roar behind them. ' _What the hell was that…? Some kind of… rabid animal or something? Oh no…_ ' hey eyes started to widen again, the weight of her previous decision starting to weigh down on her.

"Matt… he's still down there." Emily said almost pleadingly, defiantly trying to shift past the stranger in some vain attempt to right her wrongs. Again, the stranger stopped her, with a sigh of seeming reluctance.

"I'll go get him. Just go to the lodge. If you see it, use these." The stranger threw a small leather bag into Emily's chest. She tumbled backwards a little, arms clutching onto the bag with a look of confusion as the stranger heard the telltale tip tap of feet following behind the both of them, spinning around just as the creature's lanky figures gripped onto the cave wall, the rock cracking at the surprising force exerted on it.

"Flares?" Emily peered inside the bag, spying a dozen or so emergency flares sitting harmlessly at the bottom of the bag. She looked at the stranger with absolute confusion, but the creature's subsequent roar and a forceful hand shoving backwards was enough to sap her of her curiosity and follow orders for the time being.

"GO!" The stranger shoved Emily further into the tunnel leading upwards, even as the creature slowly advanced upon their position. Grimacing underneath their gas mask, the nozzle of the makeshift flamethrower went up and a simple pull of the trigger jettisoned a burst of flames, peppering the gangly beast with licks of fire. The creature howled in pain, hands held up in an attempt to mitigate the damage. The stranger pressed their advantage for as long as they could. Eventually the flamethrower was spent and the creature took the opportunity to flee, heavily wounded as it was. The stranger yanked on the shotgun resting on their backpack and took aim, though by this point the creature had fled deeper into the tunnels. ' _Crap… It's gone… Need to go that way anyway. Hope he stays alive long enough for me to get to him…_ ' they thought, bending down to refill and restock their meagre supplies.


	8. The Gang Reunited

**CHAPTER 8: THE GANG REUNITED**

 **Hey, everyone! Welcome back to chapter 8! We're in the home stretch, considering that this chapter will cover 3AM to 4AM at this point. Who knows, might go to 5AM if I think it fits the story. Anyway, couple of things to note.**

 **One, I won't be doing a section for the cave section. I feel that it would limit interactions a fair bit and it would hamper just how much story I need to get through. I will put a few flashback parts to illustrate key points, nothing more.**

 **Second, this will be the chapter to reveal some new story threads. I think most people guessed how the psycho will play out and truth be told, I didn't try to hide it. Hopefully the twist at the end will be more of a surprise.**

 **Now, on with the show!**

 **Washington Lodge Basement**

 **3:02 AM**

 **SAM**

Sam's head still throbbed over the painful sound she had heard but minutes ago, her footsteps thudding against the creaking wood and peeling concrete as she and Ashley raced downstairs, armed with the loaded rifle and a wrench respectively. Her head only had one thought. ' _Please. Please let them be okay…_ '

The deeper they went, the more reliance they needed for their flashlight. Each corner brought more unspeakable horror, further impounding on the dire situation at hand. Even as Ashley gasped with each succeeding scare, their drive forced them to swallow their fear. It took them only three minutes to reach the room, but it felt like eternity for the teenagers.

As Sam swung the door open and took aim with her rifle, the only thing that was visible was Jessica, eyes boiling in a combination of anger and sadness. Her hands were wrapped around a handgun, pointed towards a suspicious figure looming above her. Behind Jessica, another figure was crumpled on the floor, his chest moving ever so gently. ' _Must be Mike… Thank god he's still alive._ ' Sam pondered with a hint of relief, only until she realized Chris was nowhere to be seen. Before she could ponder further, the figure spoke and stepped into the shadow.

"Really, Jessica?" the figure mockingly flaunted, hands outstretched and standing proudly in front of Jessica. As Ashley and Sam rounded on the figure, she noticed Jessica's firearm was already letting out a thin wisp of smoke. Her eyes darted to the bulky individual. Not a single wound.

"The hell?!" Jessica pulled back her handgun, looking at it in wild confusion. The figure laughed mirthfully again, taking another step forward. Sam cocked her rifle again, hoping it would deter the figure from making another move. Ashley suddenly gasped, her arms lunging back and holding her mouth as she stared horrified at an unmoving clump behind the figure. ' _No…. No, it can't be…_ ' Sam looked utterly drained in mere moments.

"You've heard of blanks before?" The figure continued to speak. It reached behind its head and started to untie the knot holding it together. A faint swish echoed in the room as the string fell loose and the mask fell down onto the floor with a loud thunk. All eyes went towards the face and each one of them felt their head swim with a myriad of questions and their bodies recoiling back in utter shock.

There standing before them was Beth, as healthy as the hour they had last seen her, glancing over each one of them with a steely gaze.

"Wha…? Beth?!" Sam exclaimed, pointing a shaky finger at Beth, the rifle all but forgotten by her side with the barrel pressing gently against the cold concrete floor.

"Oh, you should've seen the look on your faces! I got you good!" Beth started to double over in laughter, hands clutching her waist as her hyena-like laughter filled the room. Everyone continued to look dumbfounded, just shaking their bewildered heads at each other and then to Beth.

"What's with the long faces, everyone? Isn't this a fun little prank?" Beth clapped her hands together as she continued to laugh her lungs dry, circling her friends in a steady pace.

"How…? We… We saw you die." Sam sputtered, arms slacking by her sides in numb shock.

"A lot of money, let's just say that. You can learn all about it when this masterpiece goes on the web!" As her words rang in Sam's ears, her eyes darted towards Chris with renewed hope. His body still remained crumpled in a heap behind an overturned chair. In the dark, it was easy to assume that he was dead. In the now bright light cast upon them, Sam saw the tell-tale sign of life as his chest rose up and down ever so slightly.

"Chris!" she exclaimed, hurrying over to his side. Ashley was not as quick on the uptake but eventually she pitched in as soon as she snapped out of her stupor.

"Come on, come on. Wake up!" Ashley said, flummoxed. Her hand gently slapped against Chris' cheeks, hoping to stir the geeky teenager. No response came from Chris. Looking closer, Ashley could tell that despite the blanks in the firearm, the force was enough to leave a clear bruise on his temple, already red from the swelling.

"All of this…. This f***ing bullshit?! Was just a prank!?" Mike shouted in exasperation and anger, punctuated by coughing fits and a slight dribble of blood flowing from his dried, cracking lips.

"I can see it now. Teen party becomes viral sensation! Pranksters everywhere upping their game!" Beth seemingly ignored him, her tone switching from joyous laughter to star-struck wonder in the blink of an eye. Again, the turnabout from the otherwise level-headed friend from hours before was still shocking. However, Jessica's shock was quickly morphing into barely contained rage, veins pulsing as she gripped her paperweight of a gun with all the might she could muster.

"Your prank got Mike hurt." Jessica darkly intoned, taking a deliberate step forward. At her words, Beth stopped circling and faced what she considered a seemingly odd behaving Jessica. She looked genuinely confused and started scratching her head with her gloved hand.

"Excuse me?" she asked, plainly. Jessica simply continued to take step after step towards the insane Washington.

"You heard me. Mike's in pain. Chris is unconscious and possibly has some traumatic… shit…I don't know! Sam too! And you… are going… to PAY!" Jessica screamed at the top of her lungs, taking large strides towards Beth with a boiling rage within her and a deafening war cry. Her arm lashed out and the butt of the gun connected with Beth's temple with a bone-crunching thwack, sending the rambling Washington down to the ground with a thump.

"Holy shit!" Ashley yelped, hurrying over to see the damage. Jessica panted and towered over Beth's crumpled form, gun still clutched in her hand. Sam and Mike meanwhile slowly shook themselves out of their incredulous stupor, with the blonde giving the injured class president a hand to help him to his feet before joining the girls surrounding Beth and staring at the person they once called friend.

"What do we do?" Ashley piped up eventually, peering at the unconscious form of Beth with a hint of fear.

"Me and Sam will go lock up this crazy bitch. Ash, can you help Mike carry Chris back to the main hall?" Jessica spun her head to meet Ashley, eyes flaring with residue anger.

"Su…sure. I'll try and call the police again. Maybe we'll get through this time." Ashley stuttered, too stunned to retort. Mike nodded affirmatively, cracking his knuckles as he bent down as best he could and wrapped Chris' left arm around his shoulders. Ashley took his right and the trio was soon taking the stairs one step at a time.

"Sounds good." Sam had replied, slinging the rifle back behind her and moving to carry their cargo to the shed. Not without searching a nearby storage closet and tying up their tormentor as securely as they could muster…

 **Path to Toolshed**

 **3:16 AM**

 **JESSICA**

No words could describe the blonde's anger, at least any she could recall. She was marching forward along the snowy trail, pistol in hand while marching the now restrained Beth towards the shed where she had ' _perished_ '. Sam was not too far behind, giving her old friend a veritable stink eye. Around them, the moonlight bathed them in a soft shine and gave them just enough light to guide their way, but not enough to see too far ahead. Beth started to slow her footsteps again, earning a forceful push from Jessica, her body jerking forward with reluctance.

"Oww… Guess you like being rough. Huh, Jessica?" Beth commented wryly, giggling as she was jerked forward for the umpteenth time. The ropes binding her hands together was digging into her flesh, almost guaranteed to leave marks when all was said and done.

"Keep walking." Jessica haltingly responded, clearly uninterested in conversation with the deranged lunatic. Jessica reached for her pocket, drawing out a loaded handgun. She slid back on the hammer, Sam flinching as the sound resonated in the otherwise silent background.

"I'm telling you. I didn't hurt Michael." Beth responded in a sickeningly sweet tone, seemingly unperturbed.

"After all the shit you put us through, I find it hard to believe you." Jessica pressed the barrel against Beth's waist and shoving her forward again. Sam watched with a little nervous energy, about ready to intervene on a moment's notice.

"Come on, it was a harmless prank." Beth shrugged, trying to brush off the accusation with a haughty air. That set Sam off, which surprised Jessica a little.

"Seriously, Beth?! Do you not understand anything about what you put us through?" Sam incredulously remarked, looking extremely confused at Beth's sudden onset of psychopathic tendency. Beth again looked shocked by Sam's outrage. ' _Why are they so mad? They did this too and everyone got over it!_ ' her warped mind considered, before common sense slowly dawned on the Washington girl.

"Yeah? What about me? What about what you put me through? You try telling your parents that your siblings died on your watch? You try watching the rest of you go home and act like nothing happened!" she shouted,

"And you thought torturing us was your way of making things fair?" Sam balked. ' _She was keeping this grudge against us for so long. I thought we had moved past this…_ ' she considered guiltily, her mind already racing back to every chat she had with Beth over the past year. ' _I should have noticed…_ '

"You know what, Sam? Screw you. You're too blind to see my point. I hope Mike gets an infection. See how he likes losing something precious." Beth suddenly felt her leg lose its footing. She tumbled forward face-first into the snow, coughing up any stray frozen dirt that had fallen in her mouth. Behind her, Jessica smiled, her leg hanging out far away from the rest of her body. The look on her face was taunting to the younger Washington, which only made her seethe with rage.

"Oops. I tripped." Jessica play-acted, pressing two bruised fingers to her mouth and pouting. Beth stared daggers at Jessica and when she leaned in to pull her back to her feet, Beth took the opportunity to spit in Jessica's face, dousing the young blonde in her saliva. Grunting, Jessica wiped the worst of it from her eyes and gingerly tapped Beth's back with her gun again.

"Don't push me, Beth. Death's too good for you. I'm going to enjoy watching you rot in jail." She snarled in Beth's ear, pushing her along with an increasingly reluctant Sam behind her.

Beth continued to rant as Jessica and Sam led her to the toolshed, the sight of which sent a shiver down Sam's spine. What once terrified her was now a source of anger and feelings of betrayal, which made Sam feel just that more disappointed in her former friend. Jessica marched the psychotic girl towards one of the sturdier wooden supports, with Sam taking guard duty. Jessica moved towards one of the

"Hold still." Jessica ordered, returning with rope in hand. Gingerly, the two blondes set about tying Beth to the pillar, using their previous experience in the scouts to aid them.

"The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round…" Beth sung, wriggling in place with little care for reality in general. Sam struggled to finish her knots, forcing her to dig the ropes into Beth's flesh a little tighter to keep her still.

"Stop moving, Beth!" Jessica grunted, finishing the knot and making sure to pull tight on the rope.

"Oww! You girls are into some really kinky stuff. Hiding something from your precious boyfriends? It's alright. I won't tell. I love having some unsolicited fun." Beth giggled, with both her captors recoiling briefly at the sheer innuendo being explicitly mentioned. Not because of its nature, but rather that its speaker was at one point considered one of the least likely to resort to such crude humour or insults. Jessica simply responded by pulling on the ropes tightly, letting it dig even deeper into her wrists.

"Ahhh!" Beth yelped in pain, her eyes straining to hold back tears.

"Jessica, back off. She's not worth it." Sam stepped in, yanking Jessica's hands away from the rope. To her surprise, Jessica didn't object, taking a deep sigh as she kept her eye on Beth.

"Oh, right. Who am I kidding? You don't have a boyfriend, Sam. Not that you'd notice anyway. Maybe you need some glasses?" Beth laughed sarcastically, rocking back and forth in the chair as much as she was allowed.

"I'm sorry?" Sam answered, confused. Jessica just stared daggers at Beth, as if to say, ' _Don't you dare say another word, Beth…_ '

"It was a surprise to me too. Seeing just how lovingly hilarious my scenario played out. Isn't that right, Jessica?" Beth taunted her.

"He's twice the person you are." Jessica mouthed, finger curling around the trigger on her gun.

"Aww… Threesomes now? Naughty, naughty Jessica?" Beth laughed raucously, shifting back and forth in her seat with a mirthful look on her face. Her taunts threw Jessica into a Mike-level rage, the blonde drawing her pistol to level at Beth's temple, pressing the barrel against her skull.

"SHUT UP!" she screamed, hand shakily holding the pistol, finger wrapped around the trigger. Her eyes watered with barely contained fury, every fibre of her being rattling in place.

"Jessica, enough!" Sam shouted. Jessica hastily pulled back, taking a short circling walk to calm her nerves. The moment she stopped, Beth opened her mouth, seemingly unfazed by the gun that was shoved in her face earlier.

"Sam and Chris, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First come love, then comes pain. Then comes pushing him off a cliff." Beth sang in a deliberately horrible tone, mockingly tilting her head back and forth at Sam along with a wide grin etched on her lips.

"You little….!" Jessica had less time to react unlike Sam and before she could even move, Sam's rifle stock had already crashed down on Beth's head, a resounding crack echoing in the shed. Her arms reared back for a second strike, but Jessica stood between the young climber and Beth, her arms outstretched to either side of herself. Breathing heavily, Sam let her rifle hang above her head for a few moments before she pulled back and slung the rifle back by her side. Jessica was quick to release a sigh of relief, her arms folding back to her sides.

"She's just trying to push your buttons, Sam. At least she's quiet now." She mentioned, spinning around to glance at the now unconscious Beth, head slumped against her right shoulder. A single red welt seemingly throbbed on her forehead, a trickle of blood dripping from a slight cut right above her eyebrow.

"I should… head back to the lodge. Make sure the others are still in one piece." Sam shuddered. ' _I can't believe I just did that. I shouldn't have let her do that to me…_ ' she persuaded herself, taking comfort in the fact that Beth wasn't grievously injured.

"Alright. I'll stay here, make sure loony bin here doesn't do anything stupid." Jessica cocked back on the frame of her handgun to accentuate her point. Sam gingerly nodded with a slight shrug of her shoulders, spinning around to head back to the lodge.

"Sam?" Jessica called back. Sam didn't bother to turn around.

"Yeah?" she asked, still staring at the snowy landscape outside.

"Give him a chance. He surprised me and Mike. What do you have to lose?" Jessica advised. Sam's shoulders seemed to slump a little, not taking to her advice like she would for the most part. In matters of the heart, she was far from the most composed of the group.

"I don't think this is the right time to be thinking about this." Sam weakly retorted, her left hand already gripping tightly around the rifle strap.

"When will it ever be?" Jessica trailed off. Sam didn't wait to find out, taking her silence to be the end of the conversation and dashing out into the snow, back to the lodge as fast as her feet could carry her.

 **Washington Lodge**

 **3:40 AM**

 **CHRIS**

Chris

"Chris, stop pacing. You're making me anxious."

"I can't believe Beth would do such a thing."

"I didn't either, but at least she's getting locked up." Ashley said calmly, her hands rubbing against one another for warmth. The blood that had once covered her hands was completely washed away, though specks of dried remnants still remained. As Chris was about to respond, the door behind them creaked open. In stepped Sam, rifle still slung on her shoulder and shivering as she made inside quickly. Her body shook from the intense weather outside but was slowly relaxing in the relative warmth of the lodge.

"I…. Sam, you're back." Ashley said.

"Yeah, took a little longer than expected." Sam begrudgingly nodded. Chris started looking behind her, expecting Jessica to follow suit behind her.

"Where's Jessica?" Chris asked, confused as to why Sam would return alone.

"Guarding Beth for the night. How's Mike doing?" Sam asked, peering over Ashley to look at Mike.

"I'm right here, you know." Mike groaned out jokingly, sprawled out as he was on the sofa, hand clutching a soft pillow close to his chest.

"Stable, at least. Though I could do without his mouth…" Ashley smirked, chuckling softly. Mike seemed to look annoyed, miffed by Ashley's casual disregard. ' _Sigh… They'll never let me live this down…_ ' he murmured to himself.

"Still here, Ash."

"Chris, can I talk to you for a second?" Sam asked, turning her attention to Chris.

"Uh, sure." Chris looked even more confused, turning to both Ashley and Mike for some hint or advice. Both teenagers merely shrugged their shoulders, equally as confused. Yet as Chris followed Sam up the stairs, he spun around to see Ashley nod her head forward, as if nudging him into expressing his feelings more openly.

Chris followed Sam as she led them to the hallway upstairs, stopping dead center in plain view of the main door and the howling wind cresting over the landscape outside the lodge window. ' _Better if we both have a chance to spot any threat on the horizon._ ' She mused, not even considering how in any other circumstance that their location had a rather romantic view.

"Jessica told me about what you did in the basement." Sam explained, rifle rubbing against her back awkwardly. Realization dawned on Chris instantly. ' _Oh, crow… She must be talking about my confession…_ ' he immediately thought of the worst case scenario.

"Sorry." Chris blurted out, causing Sam to look bemused.

"What are you apologizing for?" Sam lowly chuckled.

"For blurting it out. I… didn't think I'd see any of you guys again." Chris scratched his head awkwardly, eyes staring down at the floor in embarrassment.

"It's okay. Really. I… I think it's nice that you had a little crush on me. Flattering, in a way." Sam said as much, with Chris blushing even more, his cheeks turning beet red.

"Look, I'm sorry about all of this. Let's just forget this ever…" Chris was about to slink away only to feel Sam's hand press on his chin and lift it up to face her. Her body leaned in as her head did, her lips gently kissing the teenager softly, his eyes widening in abject surprise.

"If I knew this would shut you up, I would have done this months ago." Sam breathlessly joked, laboured breathes matching Chris' heightened emotional state.

"You liked me too?" Chris stuttered out, too caught up in the moment to properly respond.

"Look, I think we can both agree now isn't the time for relationships. But… I'm not ruling out afterwards." Sam said softly, smiling at the bespectacled friend she now saw in a new light.

"I can look forward to that."

"Guys!" Ashley's voice rang out from below, once again ruining the otherwise lovely moment the two new lovebirds were having. Chris sighed, a little miffed while Sam shot him a wry grin as she dragged him back downstairs with her, seeing a clearly shaken Emily stumble in through the front door.

The first thing Chris took notice of was her clothing. Say what you will about Emily, but she took pride in her appearance. That was far from her current state. Her jacket was torn in multiple places. Most were accidental, no doubt from whatever predicament she had found herself in. One of them was not, a thin strip of fabric missing from the edges. Her face was matted with dirt and steadily melting snow, her left cheek slightly singed. She was limping on her right leg, a small gash visible past her tattered trousers and coated in barely congealed red-brown blood.

"Emily! Thank god!" Ashley hurried over, helping the limping girl towards the couch, a look of concern washing over her face. Mike sat up in his own chair, grunting in pain and with watery eyes taking in Emily's appearance.

"Where's Matt?" Ashley peered above her, half expecting the jock to walk back in behind her. Emily shook her head. ' _I… I killed him… I…_ ' she felt her mind wander. If by some slim miracle he had survived, one word from him was enough to ruin her.

"He fell down into a mineshaft. And there was some person… and a monster." Emily stammered out, breathless in her retelling, hands shaking as she attempted to express her incredulous story with extra visual aids.

"Slow down, just take a deep breath." Ashley said, patting Emily's shoulder.

"We need to help him." Emily just stammered again, trying to get off from the couch, only for Ashley's firm hand to set her right back down. Before Ash could say anything more, Jessica stormed in, gun drawn as if expecting danger. When no danger presented itself, she relaxed and holstered her sidearm to her hip.

"Jessica, why are you here?" Ashley asked, just as Sam and Chris hurried down the steps two at a time. Jessica pointed towards Emily, who still looked pale with fright over Jessica's sudden arrival.

"I heard screaming and I ran over here." She explained briefly before Sam cut her off.

"And you left Beth alone?!" Sam looked mortified. Jessica shrugged non-pulsed, quickly stowing the pistol in her back-pocket.

"She's all tied up. She's not going anywhere." She said, bending down to get a closer look at Emily, her eyes darting over the various wounds all over her exposed skin.

"That's not the point!" Sam roundly remarked, jabbing her finger in Jessica's direction. That only served to stoke the flames and soon enough, the argument overtook the others, all trying to get the others to see their point or to relay information to someone else.

 **Washington Lodge**

 **3:48 AM**

 **MIKE**

Injured though he may be, the former class president still looked at the main doors with a worried look on his face. Once or twice, he would rise to his feet and try to get closer. Each time, Ashley had to hold him back down when the inevitable sting of pain shot up his system. He felt powerless to help and it made him extremely upset. He woke up several minutes later, hearing Emily's voice join the crowd. ' _When did she get here? Did Beth plan something else for her and Matt?_ ' he pondered to himself.

As the six continued to argue, a loud smack echoed within the hallowed halls, all eyes drawn to the main door where the sound originated from. Standing in the doorway was the same figure that Emily had described, a seemingly annoyed posture overtaking the heavily armed stranger. In one of their hands was a homemade flamethrower, the nozzle aimed downwards while a thin pipe led to a pair of canisters on their back. The other hand was carrying someone else, someone that drew far more attention for Emily in particular.

"Matt!" she exclaimed, rushing to aid her boyfriend. Matt grunted, still peeved with Emily's last act but made no move to push her away. Emily took that as a positive thing, carrying the injured football player back to the couch. Meanwhile the other five who had readied makeshift weapons in stark paranoia slowly lowered their weapons as the stranger's intent was clear. The commotion enticed Mike's curiosity and despite the pain, hoisted himself back up to his feet and walked up behind the other five.

The stranger glared over all of the gathered teens, their right hand cycling through fingers one by one as the left held tightly onto the flamethrower. A moment of silence passed before the stranger reached for their gas mask, peeling away the old piece of hardware and revealing their face to the rest of the group. Instantly, all of their eyes bulged in shock and whatever composure the more measured of their number had evaporated as they stared blankly at the familiar figure.

"Wha….?!" Chris gawped, rubbing his glasses as if seeing a mirage.

"No way…." Jessica mouthed as well, her hand shakily pointing at the de-masked figure with her face starting to drain of colour.

"I don't believe it." Sam finally punctuated the conversation, taking a tepid step forward to ascertain what they were seeing.

 **Hours Later, Blackwood Pines Police Station**

"I can see why they were surprised. I would be too, all things considering." The detective mused on their explanation, pacing around his side of the table while carefully examining their witness. The figure was partially covered by the darkness in the room, with only a pair of hands resting rather calmly on the dusty table. The detective finally paused as he rested behind his chair, hands pressed on the back of the rickety furniture.

"But that's the problem with this story. You." The detective apprised, eyeing the suspect with a hint of confusion. He soon resumed his seat opposite the figure, staring down the person with a pointed look in his eyes.

"Now's your chance to tell us your version of events, Miss Washington." He said, looking down at the figure still draped in the dark. At the mention of her surname, the figure leaned forward and dragged the chair further inward to better meet the detective's eyes. Long strands of messy black hair fell from her head down to her shoulders, several of which was fluttering gently in the stale air circulating in the room. Other strands fell down in front of her face, covering some visible scars on her cheeks that had yet to fully heal. She was wearing glasses on her face, though tiny cracks in the glass were visible around the edges. Her hands were slathered in scratch marks and scars, giving her the look of a hardened survivor. As her entire form came into clear view, her lips finally moved.

"Where do I begin?" Hannah echoed, brooking a tired expression from the battle-hardened teenager, a wave of dread washing over the youngest Washington as she prepared to tell her tale of woe and misery…

 **So as you can see, Hannah was the flamethrower person all along! I intend for the next chapter to be a sole focus on Hannah, explaining the past year and how she came to be what she is in the current timeline. I hope you all enjoyed reading. Hope to see you all again real soon!**


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